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THE LITTLE WORLD 


A HOSPITAL ROMANCE 


By 


MILLLICENT PEPPARD DE MONE 

#1 




Kansas City, Missouri 
BURTON PUBLISHING COMPANY 
Publishers 



Copyrighted 1920 By 
Burton Publishing: Company 
All Rights Reserved 


GCT 28 fek 


g)CU601224 


THE LITTLE WORLD. 


Dedicated to those who through years of 
faithful striving have learned the true meaning 
of “Ich dien.” 


M. P. D. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PROLOGUE 

CHAPTER 1. 

Joan Murry. 

CHAPTER II. 

The Accident Case. 
CHAPTER III. 

The Probationer. 
CHAPTER IV. 

Mrs. Godwin. 
CHAPTER V. 

The Talebearer. 
CHAPTER VI. 

Doctor Chang. 
CHAPTER VII. 

Love and Duty. 
CHAPTER VIII. 

The Operation. 
CHAPTER IX. 

The Path of Good Resolutions. 
CHAPTER X. 

A Talk on Drugs. 

CHAPTER XI. 
Midnight Revelry. 
CHAPTER XII. 

A Ride. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Joan Hears a Few Truths. 
CHAPTER XIV. 
Pilgrim^s Point. 

7 


8 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


CHAPTER XV. 

The Nurses’ Ball. 
CHAPTER XVI. 

A Taste of the Outside World. 
CHAPTER XVII. 

The Pathway of the Weak. 
CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Way of Life. 
CHAPTER XIX. 

The Woman Must Pay. 
CHAPTER XX. 

Not Afraid. 
CHAPTER XXL 
A Heart to Heart Talk. 
CHAPTER XXII. 

Out of the Storm. 
CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Price Is Paid. 
CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Training School. 
CHAPTER XXV. 

The Pathway of the Strong. 
CHAPTER XXVI. 

When the Guilty Pay. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

The End of the Trail. 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 

And Life Goes On. 
CHAPTER XXIX. 

The End of the Rainbow. 


PROLOGUE. 

The Hospital stood on a hill overlooking the 
City. It was a large, white stone building, against 
a background of smooth green lawns, and orna- 
mental trees, a picture of quiet peace, still and 
stem and solemn, beautiful in its sober way, cov- 
ering with a cloak of immobility the sickness and 
pain, and ofttimes death, within. Alone it stood, 
above the sin-racked, storm-tossed, heaving sea 
of human life, the smoky, dust-grimed City, like 
a gleaming white coral rock, rising above the ever 
restless bosom of the ocean. Perhaps it meant 
something the same to pain-wrecked humanity, as 
that coral strand to a shipwrecked sailor — a place 
of rest for a time at least. 

Within, all was white also, from the spotless 
wards and white surgeries to the white-garbed 
nurses and doctors who reminded one of angels 
soothing away pain, when one was sailing away 
peacefully on the wings of an anesthetic, and who 
turned out to be very ordinary human beings, 
when one wanted a drink in the middle of the 
night, or disturbed a bit of corridor gossip, by 
ringing one’s bell. 


9 


10 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


Everywhere one looked was the same dazzling 
white cleanliness, for here the dust of the city 
did not enter, shut out as it was with all else of 
the outer world, for this was a world apart, where 
none came save those who were a part of it. 

As without, the idea of peace pervaded, and 
quiet reigned within. As the white paint cov- 
ered up the darkness of wood and iron, so did 
the white sheets cover the pain-darkened soul 
beneath. As the false white quietude covered up 
and hushed the smothered moan and sob-drawn 
breath, so did the white uniforms of the nurses 
cover the human heart of the wearer. 

Wards, with rows of beds that were never 
out of line, on which the sheets are magically 
kept straight even over the most restless shoul- 
ders. Private rooms, where the only glow of 
color came from flowers sent in from the outside 
world. Long corridors, spotless and empty save 
for the sheet-covered stretchers and the white 
figures that propelled them. Accident rooms, 
where tom and broken humanity, wrung with the 
tortures of the damned, spilled its life-blood on 
the tiled floor. Anesthetic rooms filled with 
sweetly sickening odors, where one found blessed 
sleep, and floated off with confused memories of 
stinging hypodermic needles, and soft soothing 
voices that made one believe there was no pain. 
Operating rooms, where nerve-racked surgeons 
swore beneath their breath at swift-moving 
nurses, calling for still greater swiftness in the 
place where Time battled with Death for the mas- 
tery. Receiving rooms, where alone the dust of 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


11 


the City entered, and where light, trained fingers 
tore and cut away the soiled, ragged, and blood- 
stained clothing, to replace it with gowns from the 
accident room closets. Linen closets, where tier 
upon tier of spotless linen, arranged in even piles, 
filled the shelves. Closets filled with linen-wrapped 
sterile goods, gowns, laperotomy sheets, towels, 
table slips, caps, all stained yellow from long 
hours in the sterilizers. Other closets, filled 
with more packages of sterile gauze sponges, pads 
and bandages. Sterilizing rooms, where shining 
nickel sterilizers steamed and bubbled. Darkened 
recovery rooms, where pain-darkened souls awak- 
ened to a tragic world of pain, that filled with 
mortal agony the body returning to life. 

A mystic world of its own, where pain and 
delirium pushed aside the veneering of human 
nature, leaving it a naked quivering thing, at the 
mercy of the soft-footed, soft-voiced nurses, who 
saw, and knew, and heard, many strange things 
that they hid away within themselves, beneath 
the mask of their uniform, and never revealed, 
for their hospital world was a strange secret 
world that kept its own council, and the council 
of its inmates, and bitter indeed was the penalty 
to one who betrayed. 

The Hospital was the result of a hobby, a 
wonderful brain and unlimited means. It was 
equipped with every arrangement of the science 
of modern surgery. There was nothing lacking 
in its operating rooms, its accident rooms, its 
wards, to make it other than one of the most 
perfect of later-day emergency hospitals. It was 


12 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


private only because it was owned by one man, 
but all the surgeons from the city brought to it 
their most interesting cases, so that the wards 
were always filled to overflowing, and many cases 
waiting for room. 

For years the clever brain of one man had 
worked on the machinery of the great place, until 
it ran on oiled wheels, its owner’s pride and joy, 
the child of his brain and heart and soul, the 
product of great theories and the means to put 
them in practice. All that was in the man he 
had given to his hobby; outside of it he had 
neither heart nor soul. Human beings were to 
him only machines that sometimes got out of 
repair, to be mended in his workshop. Even his 
only child was to him only a cog in the machinery. 
He had first been disappointed that she was a 
girl, but he trained her to fit into her place in 
his great work, although aside from that it is 
doubtful if he ever thought of her. 

He had his own training school, and trained 
his own nurses, so that the name of the hospital 
on any diploma opened the way to success to a 
nurse who carried it, for when one had drilled 
for four years under that rule of iron, she was as 
near a machine as a human being can be. 

But when the glory of his work was at its 
height, the great surgeon was stricken with a 
mortal illness and died, leaving the burden of 
his hobby on the shoulders of his child, who was 
only a slip of a girl. Bound by promises to the 
dying man, she tied herself to that inheritance 
with a thousand bands of steel. 


CHAPTER ONE. 

Joan Murray. 

Joan Murray sat in the bow-window of her 
sitting room and watched a band of nurses, play- 
ing tennis on the beautiful lawns of the Nurses’ 
Home. 

She was small, scarcely larger than a child, 
and her hair worn in short curls around her head, 
gave her the appearance of one. She was neither 
dark nor fair, but her face was tinted like the 
inside of a shell, her features were straight and 
delicate, yet the real beauty of her face lay in 
her eyes. Looking into them one forgot to notice 
their color, for in their unfathomable depth lay 
the warm passion of the South, the wisdom and 
mystery of the East, the bright freedom and 
frankness of the West, and the coldness of the 
North. They were, in spite of her evident youth, 
the eyes of a woman who had looked upon many 
kinds of life and had learned to understand. 

She turned her head to call “Come in,” at a 
light tap on her door, and Dr. Lessing Jones, 
junior surgeon on the staff, walked into the room. 
He came over and laid some papers on the desk 
in front of her, and drew a chair up near her. 


13 


14 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


“Why aren’t you out, this wonderful day?” 
he asked, smiling, his very dark attractive face 
lighting up in a flash of white teeth. 

“I was busy — different people were in, look- 
ing over the Hospital. They were strangers in 
the City, so I went around with them myself. 
Very old friends of father’s, whom I dare say 
he had forgotten years ago, but they remembered 
him— he saved their child, I believe. Poor father, 
at least his patients found him kind.” 

“He was — in the sick room. I think it is the 
only place he ever was known to smile.” 

“I wish he were here now ; I get so confused 
with it all sometimes, without him to turn to 
when things go wrong,” the girl said with a 
sigh. There was no sorrow in her voice or face 
over a loved parent who was dead; she spoke 
impersonally, for it was the surgeon that she 
wished back, not the father she had never known. 

“That is not strange, Joan. This work and 
care is too heavy for you — ^too much for those 
little hands. If you would but give me the right 
to help!” He came to his feet suddenly, and 
leaned over her desk. 

“You are a very great help. Less, but you 
are too good a man to marry, just to help me. 
WTien I marry, the man must come first. I can- 
not divide my attention. I do not think that I 
will ever marry. Besides, Less, you do not love 
me.” 

“Love you? Why, Joan, I have loved you 
since you were a kid in short skirts.” 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


15 


She smiled, and the smile lit up her face with 
so great a tenderness that it was transfigured. 
Joan Murray seldom smiled ; her lip would some- 
times curve in a little sneer, or her silvery laugh 
ring out as sweet and cold as the chime of silver 
bells, but when she smiled, as now she smiled on 
Lessing Jones, one was suddenly lost in the beauty 
of her face. 

“You have always loved me — yes, as I love 
you — and always will, but is that a love to base 
marriage on?” 

“It looks pretty solid to me — Good Lord, 
Joan, you have not turned romantic, have you?” 

She gave him a quizzical glance. “I do not 
know. Less; perhaps I am romantic in spite of 
the life I have led ; sometimes I do not know what 
I really want — I am not sure. Your love is solid 
and true, and I believe in it. It is a good foun- 
dation for partnership, but somehow I do not 
know how it would work out in marriage.” 

“I had always been led to believe that mar- 
riage was a partnership,” Jones said quietly. 

“Yes, perhaps it is, but Less — ” her face grew 
hard. “How can I know what marriage is ? What 
do I know of any of the beautiful things of life? 
What have I seen but the sordid, the false, the 
untrue? The life that has gradually unfolded 
before my eyes, tarnished, bitter, filled with mis- 
ery, makes me wonder sometimes if there is any 
other side to it but the one I know. Is there a 
dream life that covers up this gruesome skeleton 
that I have known all my life? Dreams that fill 
the soul and keep it soft and young — ah. Less, 


16 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


what time have I had for dreams? Sometimes 
I wonder what I would have been like if I had 
had a chance like other girls, but I was only a 
bit of clay tossed into my father’s hands and 
molded to his will. When other girls were being 
told fairy tales, I was being told of surgery. 
When other girls were playing with their dolls, 
I was watching sharp and shining instruments, 
and learning their uses. When other girls were 
dreaming, I was under the iron rules of the train- 
ing school. While other girls were enjoying life, 
I was studying under world-renowned surgeons 
and scientists in Germany, and when other girls 
were happy and gay and free, I was dissecting 
living human bodies in the operating room. I 
have seen only the one side of life. Less — I will 
never know the dream world that belongs to other 
girls. Always will it be the same. I was molded 
by my father’s hands into a living machine, and 
in the making, my dream life — the nourishment 
of my soul — ^has been left out, until it is too 
late — too late!” 

Lessing Jones leaned nearer her, his dark 
face very tender. “Poor little girl, you got your 
life before you got your dreams. You were taught 
to beware, before the danger ever came, and yet, 
Joan, you have missed what most of us must 
suffer — the broken dreams and disillusionments, 
and the pain of finding that things are not what 
they seem.” 

“Perhaps.” She was silent a moment, look- 
ing at Lessing Jones she wondered if he would 
not be a wonderful man with which to spend one’s 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


17 


life, and lean upon. He was so strong, so true, 
so much a part of her life, she could not imagine 
that life without him. And it was that alone, 
although neither of them realized it, that made 
things as they were. Jones was far too much a 
part of her life to be a figure of romance to her, 
and just at present Joan Murray’s starved heart 
was seeking romance. Jones, who had always 
been there to help when she needed help, ever 
present to guard her at every turn, seemed very 
little like the Prince Charming of her dreams. 

“What have you there. Less ?” she said after 
a short time. “Another applicant ?’’ She glanced 
at the papers he had laid on her desk, with a little 
frown. “Why cannot I dispense with the train- 
ing school altogether? It is getting to be a nuis- 
ance. Just when I get so that I can depend on a 
nurse, comes time for her to take her diploma 
and depart. Not that I blame her for wanting 
to shake the dust of this establishment from her 
feet, and breathe God’s clean air again. It must 
be like getting out of prison to them, into the 
warm sunshine of another world, sunshine that 
must surely melt the hardened crust from around 
their hearts and souls. I do not like this taking 
in of new girls out of that other world; there is 
so much for them to learn, so much for them to 
unlearn. If they have had their dreams, how 
must they be disillusioned in this world of ours ?” 

“Dear Joan, the training school is not the 
only land of disillusion. Eventually life breaks 
us on the wheel, kills our dreams, and breaks our 
hearts.’’ He sighed as he looked at her, then 


18 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


with a shrug went back to the question at hand. 
“You have to have new girls, or whence would 
come our nurses? This girl — the one who has 
filled out the application blank here, is a nice 
little girl — a country doctor’s daughter. He is 
a friend of mine, and I wish you would give her 
a chance.” 

“Protege ?” 

“No, but I should like to see the girl have 
her chance. I have always been decent about the 
rules, Joan. I care nothing for the girl.” 

“It isn’t you. Less, but the girl. It may seem 
a senseless thing, this rule regarding the nurses 
and doctors, but it has to be. There are only two 
people in a thousand who can keep the personal 
out of their work once it is established outside. 
Even you and I, in spite of our hard training, are 
not so perfect in our work because of our friend- 
ship. I wish I were more like my father. Do you 
remember. Less, that he recognized no one in his 
work, not even me? We were all alike, cogs in a 
machine.” 

“Your father was not human,” Jones said 
briefly. “Don’t try to be like him, Joan. I should 
like you to take this girl into the training school.” 

What is she like? You are no different 
from other surgeons. Less, when it comes to pick- 
ing out material for nurses. You want perfect 
nurses, and also pretty ones — I am sorry to say 
they do not always mean the same thing. You 
take up any material that looks good to you and 
bring it to the training school to be made into 
good nurses.” 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


19 


Jones laughed. “We want them efficient 
w'hen we need them, and pretty when we have the 
time to look at them.” 

“And you spoil them when you have time, 
and expect them to be human machines when you 
have not. The only hospital that will ever be a 
success will have all women surgeons.” 

“God forbid ! You would never get a proba- 
tioner at all. You want a convent, not a hospital. 
Yet, surely, Joan, the girls enter the school with 
the idea of becoming good nurses.” 

“You have answered your question before 
you asked it. Less. We would get very few nurses 
in a woman’s hospital. What their idea on enter- 
ing the training school is I do not pretend to know, 
but it certainly, with the great majority, is not 
the hope of becoming a perfect nurse. Go ask the 
girls why they are here, why they have chosen 
this as a profession. I doubt if you will find two 
in the school prepared to answer your question, if 
they tell the truth. Half of them do not know 
why they are here. However, that is beside the 
point. What of the girl you ask me to take into 
the school ? Is she a doll-faced chit, with no more 
idea of what she is coming to than any child, or 
is she a strong-minded woman with more ideas of 
the duties of a nurse than we have? I prefer 
the former, for it takes more time and work to 
clean out and refill a vessel than to fill an empty 
one.” 

“You do not seem to be in any mood to bother 
with probationers today, Joan. I never saw your 


20 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


theories so tattered. What you need is to get 
out into the fresh air for a time.” 

“But I have not the time, so we may as well 
settle our discussion now.” 

“But, Joan, what is the use? Here am I 
bringing you a nice little girl who is starting out 
to do good in the world, she has faith in herself, 
and in the world, so surely she cannot fail.” 

“So surely will she fail. Less. Have you no 
pity for the girl? If you have, keep her away 
from the training school. Leave her in the coun- 
try where she belongs. I should rather bring in 
a girl from off the streets of the city, for her 
disillusionment is complete at any rate, than a 
clean-minded country girl, her heart an open book 
for the writing of the hardest school on earth. 
Don’t you know. Less, that the cleaner the page 
the more can be written thereon?” 

“Joan, what is the matter with you today? 
I never heard you talk so before.” 

“I have been thinking. Less. I am tied to an 
inheritance for which I have no love, but I can 
never give it up now, for I am bound to it by a 
promise to the dead. Never mind, I will give 
your girl a chance, perhaps because you ask, per- 
haps because I am in need of a probationer. But, 
Less, I refuse to take the blame if she fails.” 

“Joan—” 

Again she smiled, but she said gravely 
enough, “My name is Miss Murray to the staff 
when on duty. Dr. Jones,” and Jones knew that 
he was being quietly dismissed. 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


21 


Smiling he threw the application on the desk 
again and with a parting word left the room, 
but once in the corridor his face grew grave. 
He had suddenly remembered that Joan Murray 
was alone, and in a very hard position, so that 
he must not add to her burden by showing the 
friendship that lay so close to his heart. For 
now that the rigid rule of the great surgeon had 
been withdrawn, a certain tension of waiting lay 
over all for the young head to fail. More than 
ever he wished that he might have the right to 
help. 


CHAPTER TWO. 

The Accident Case. 

The Convent bells nearby tolled out the hour 
of six. In the distance the whistles and gongs, 
bells and clocks from the City raised clarion voices 
above the smoky air, calling forth to those that 
labored by day, telling them the workday 
was over at last, and weary hands and feet might 
rest. Only in the Hospital was there no end to 
the day; round and round the clocks crept, yet 
never did that slow machinery that moved to the 
tune of human lives cease its endless grind. 

The nurses had disappeared from the grounds, 
for it was dinner hour, and each patient having 
been served with whatever portion was his or her 
due, the nurses had trooped into the large dining 
room. Dinner was served from 6:30 to 8:30. The 
senior nurses dined from 6 :30 to 7 :30, while the 
first-year nurses and probationers hurried 
through the last duties of the day. They went 
into dinner when the seniors came out, and their 
work was done for the day. The seniors after 
dinner gave one last survey of the wards and 
wrote their day records, and at 8 o’clock the night 


22 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


23 


nurses came on duty, so that all others excepting 
those assigned special duty were free for the 
night. 

The dining room was a great white-tiled 
room, an ell joining the hospital to the Nurses’ 
Home. There was a small private room attached 
that Dr. Murray had used when he was alive, but 
now Joan chose to eat in a comer of the big room. 
She loved it, with its small tables, its wicker 
chairs designed to rest in while one ate, its wide 
mirrors, its screening palms, its soft-voiced, soft- 
footed little maids, but best of all she loved to 
watch the bevy of white-clad figures, laughing, 
talking gaily, as though the white walls had 
placed them far, far beyond the tragedies of life 
that lay on the other side. 

Tonight, just as Joan was about to do down, 
the telephone on the desk beside her rang shrilly, 
and she turned back to answer it. One of the 
staff surgeons was calling. 

“Miss Murray? Doctor Gerry speaking. 
Have you a private room? I have an accident 
case — pretty serious — will have to operate — con- 
cussion.” 

“Number Sixteen is empty, but it is engaged 
for one of your own patients. Doctor. It is the 
only one in the house,” Joan answered quietly. 

“That will do — ^will have to — can’t take the 
case anywhere else. Have the surgery ready for 
trephine, please. I will be out in less than an 
hour. Call Dr. Jones — I will want him to assist. 
All right? Thank you.” 


24 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


Joan Murray hung up the receiver with a 
little sigh, and pressed a button on her desk; 
there never seemed to be any escape night or day. 
With the wards filled to overflowing and the pri- 
vate rooms all engaged, she had hoped for at 
least one night of quiet. But now the surgery 
nurses would be kept on duty until all hours, and 
tomorrow’s rush would never give them the re- 
quired hours of extra off-duty. 

The nurse who answered the bell tapped on 
the half-open door, and stood waiting. She was 
a pretty girl, the pink and white and gold type 
that needed only the white uniform and kerchief 
cap to make her look like an angel. But Clare 
Norton was no angel ; she was less of one perhaps 
that any of the others. 

Joan looked up at her. “You may tell Miss 
Grey to get the surgery ready for trephine. I 
will come down shortly.” 

“Yes, Miss Murray.” The girl’s fair face 
clouded, she had but lately been transferred to 
the surgery, and this meant the loss of her eve- 
ning. With the unreasonableness of a thought- 
less mind, she blamed it, not on the uncertainty 
of the hospital life, but to the girl on whose slim 
shoulders rested this little world. 

Joan went down the corridor presently, a 
little figure in her plain white dress, down the 
wide stairs and into the large outer office where 
a number of senior nurses sat at a long table 
writing records. They rose to their feet at sight 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


25 


of her, but she only paused for a moment to 
speak a word to the head nurse before she went 
on through. 

“Miss Corey, I will not have time to go over 
the night orders with you. You will go over them 
please, with Miss Smith, and you need not remain 
on duty, as I shall be in the surgery myself.” 
She went out without waiting for the head nurse’s 
murmured “Thank you. Miss Murray,” and on 
down the corridor to where the sterilizing rooms, 
anesthetic room, recovery rooms and operating 
rooms were apart from the wards. 

Already the machinery of the operating room 
had been set in motion, the tanks for the basins 
and instruments filling with water, automatically, 
the sterile water tanks beginning to bubble and 
steam. The operating room nurse. Miss Grey, in 
surgery cap and gown, going about her work 
swiftly and silently, her needle nurses already 
“scrubbing up” in the “washup” room. With her 
soft curls tied under a cap, and a gown over her 
white dress, Joan Murray went to work, too, sort- 
ing out instruments, gloves, sutures, needles. 

The nurses as a rule, especially the younger 
ones, stood a little in awe of Joan. She was so 
swift, so quick to see a mistake, so small and 
silent. She had little patience with stupidity, but 
the girls who were well up in their work found 
pleasure in working with her, for things under 
her guidance seemed to go more smoothly. 

“You need new gloves. Miss Grey ; these look 
as though they had been used. That last ship- 
ment was not good, I will have to look into the 


26 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


matter. Send Miss Norton to the dispensary — ^no, 
she is scrubbing up, I will go myself, these can 
go to the accident room.” She went out, and 
hearing the receiving room bell ring, kept on 
there. 

The ambulance doctor. Dr. Gerry, and Dr. 
Jones were there with two nurses. On a stretcher 
just being wheeled in lay the figure of a woman 
covered with a long cloak. Dr. Gerry turned as 
she came in. “Miss Murray, I want this patient 
prepared for trephine at once. Have her pre- 
pared and etherized in the accident room, will 
you ?” 

“Yes, Dr. Gerry. Dr. Maher has not arrived 
yet, although I telephoned him at once — I think 
I hear him now in the corridor. Miss Anson, take 
the patient to the accident room please, and tell 
Dr. Maher that Dr. Gerry has given orders that 
she be' etherized there.” She shrugged her shoul- 
ders. “He will hate it I know, but there is no 
accounting for Dr. Gerry’s whims.” 

Dr. Gerry drew her aside. “This is rather 
a strange case. Miss Murray. About 6, or a little 
before, I received a telephone call that there had 
been an accident on the River Road. The man 
who telephoned said he was a chauffeur, and 
that there was a woman with him when his car 
had overturned. The woman was pinned under 
the car. He did not give his name — in fact I 
believe I neglected to ask, but I went at once of 
course.” He gave Joan a quick glance. It was 
more or less of a joke among the staff that Gerry 
answered calls without waiting for any particu- 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


27 


lars, so that he was often wild goose chasing over 
the countryside, and bringing in accidents of all 
kinds and descriptions, at any hour of the day or 
night. But Joan knew that Dr. Gerry was a kind 
as well as a clever surgeon, for all of his many 
peculiar ways, and her face was perfectly grave 
as she answered quietly, “Of course.” 

“I drove out the River Road and found the 
car all right — had the devil’s own time getting it 
off the woman, too, my chauffeur and I! but 
there was not a sign of the man, and the car was 
stripped of everything that might identify the 
owner — ^license card, number, everything. Oh, I 
say, nurse,” as the stretcher passed them on the 
way to the accident room. “Make a clean prep- 
aration there, shave all the head — don’t leave any 
hair,” and as the nurse passed on with a mur- 
mured “Yes, Doctor,” he turned again to Joan. 
“If there is one thing I do detest, it is trying to 
do trephine through a bunch of hair. As I was 
saying, the fellow, whoever he was, got off with 
everything that would let us know who he was. 
There was only one place he could have gone, and 
that was the Inn, three miles back, but we 
couldn’t get a word out of them. Must have 
thought she was dead, and skipped out — no busi- 
ness on that River Road anyway — only a death 
trap at best. Oh, by the way, I brought Dr. 
Chang with me tonight ; you have not met him, I 
think ; he has just returned from France. He will 
be interested in the case, I suppose, and will be 
in the surgery, too.” 


28 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


They went into the accident room, and Joan 
went over to glance at the patient as she lay there 
with quantities of beautiful fair hair spread out 
over the pillow ready for clipping. Joan looked 
down casually, making some remark on the pity 
of the sacrifice, then suddenly her eyes darkened 
with interest. 

“Dr. Gerry,” she said quickly in a low tone, 
that called him to her side at once, but she took 
him out of earshot of the nurse before she spoke 
her thought. “Dr. Gerry, is it possible that you 
have not recognized your patient?” 

He gave her an astonished glance. “Recog- 
nized her? No, I never saw her before, of course 
— at least I don’t think I did.” 

“It is Mrs. Godwin. Oh, Doctor, how like 
you not to have recognized one whom you have 
seen so often!” 

“Impossible !” 

“But nevertheless true.” 

“But Mrs. Godwin is in the White Mountains. 
Only yesterday the Doctor told me himself.” He 
went over to the figure on the stretcher and 
looked down on it intently. There was no mis- 
take; Joan had been right; he might have known 
that, he told himself. Joan was not one to make 
such an assertion without knowing whereof she 
spoke. It was only that the hospital had gath- 
ered into its sheltering walls another little mys- 
tery, another little tragedy. 

He beckoned Joan into the corridor. “What 
are we to do about it ?” 

“Dr. Godwin must be notified. Her condi- 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


29 


tion is rather bad, is it not, Doctor? Would it 
be safe to leave him in ignorance until she re- 
covered consciousness ?” 

“No, he will have to be told at once. She 
may never recover from the anesthetic. I won- 
der if I can get him at his house now. What time 
is it?” 

“Just eight o’clock. He will probably be at 
his club, as he dines there more often than he 
does at home. I will try to get him there for 
you. Doctor.” 

“Thanks. I will go to the surgery now.” He 
went down the corridor, and Joan went back into 
the accident room. There she found Lessing 
Jones with a tall stranger in uniform. The for- 
mer turned as she entered the room. 

“This is Dr. Chang, Miss Murray, our re- 
turned hero.” 

“Dr. Jones is speaking about the uniform, 
not the wearer. Miss Murray,” Chang said in a 
careless voice as he shook hands. Joan found her- 
self looking into a handsome face, and two mock- 
ing wine brown eyes, a face such as she had never 
seen, so careless it was, yet full of strange beauty 
and mocking wickedness. Something went 
through her like a little shock, a vague warning ; 
things seemed hazy for a moment, and she seemed 
lost in the strange brilliance of those mysterious 
eyes, but she gave him one of her rare smiles. 

“Uniforms do not makes heroes alone, do 
they. Dr. Chang?” 

The anesthetic was being administered to the 
sheet- wrapped patient and Joan glanced towards 


30 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


her. “Better put a blanket over her,” she said 
to the nurse nearby. “The accident room is never 
so warm as the anesthetic room or surgery.” 

“You are coming to the operating room, are 
you not. Dr. Chang? Dr. Gerry is scrubbing up. 
Dr. Jones, will you come down now?” 

In the operating room Joan found everything 
in readiness, the two needle nurses waiting. “Dr. 
Gerry has a strange surgeon with him; will you 
get him a gown. Miss Grey. I think one of Dr. 
Jones’ will fit him, and he will not require gloves. 
Miss Norton, cover your instrument table please. 
Never leave instruments which have been steril- 
ized exposed to the air before an operation. There 
is a sterile towel for the purpose.” 

The surgery doors rolled back noiselessly, 
and the stretcher came into the room with the 
patient. Dr. Maher, two nurses and an orderly, 
and the patient was lifted to the operating table. 

As silently as they had come stretcher and 
nurses vanished again through the rolling doors, 
and from the “washup” room the doctors trooped 
in, talking earnestly, carelessly among them- 
selves, as thought no human life hung in the 
balance, no tragedy lay behind. 

But soon even they were silent, and a tension 
of interest fell over all, there was no sound save 
the click of shining instruments, a muttered im- 
precation when something went a little wrong, a 
whispered word from one nurse to another. Joan 
stood near, ready to anticipate a wish of one of 
the surgeons, ready to prompt a nurse who did 
not understand, ready to help each in turn. 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


31 


Swiftly, with skillful fingers they worked 
over the shaven head, until the crushed bit of 
bone at the base of the brain had been lifted 
away, and with a sigh of relief Dr. Gerry straight- 
ened himself, leaving the dressing and bandaging 
to his assistants. There was a look of extreme 
satisfaction on his face as he gazed upon his work, 
for he knew that it was well done, and he felt 
assured that as far as the operation was con- 
cerned all was well, all that was needed now was 
good nursing, and of that he was assured in this 
hospital. 

Silently as before the stretcher came in and 
the patient was removed. The surgeons stripped 
off wet, blood-bespattered gowns, dropping them 
carelessly where they stood, or throwing them 
into a corner out of their way, ripped off gloves, 
regardless of the delicate fabric so easily torn, 
and talking lightly, almost gaily now that the 
tension was past, went out leaving the surgery 
to the nurses. A different surgery it was from 
the one they had entered an hour before. Blood- 
stained sheets, table covers, towels and sponges 
lay about everywhere. The white-tiled floor was 
no longer spotless, but spotted and dirty from the 
tramp of many feet. The instrument and sterile 
goods tables were covered with stained instru- 
ments, sponges, broken glass tubes, and unused 
sutures, and it all must be made clean again 
before the girls could go off duty. 

The surgeons had gone into the dining room 
for a lunch and chat, as none of them had had 
dinner, when Joan met Dr. Godwin in the cor- 


32 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


ridor. She smiled a little grimly to herself. It 
was so like Dr. Gerry to forget all about Dr. 
Godwin and leave the hard part of telling to her. 
She knew that she had no easy task before her. 
Dr. Godwin was a hard, aggresive man, and very 
firm in his convictions of right and wrong. He 
had no patience with mysteries of any kind, and 
here was one that Joan feared would be no excep- 
tion to the rule. 

“What does Gerry want now ?” he asked im- 
patiently at sight of her. “Doesn't he know yet 
that I have no time to goose chase over the coun- 
try after him ? This is the last time I will answer 
any call from him, if he can’t state his business 
over the phone!’’ 

“This time it was really important. Dr. God- 
win. Will you come upstairs with me? There is 
a patient in room sixteen Dr. Gerry wishes you 
to see,” It occurred to her then that the chauf- 
feur who had telephoned Dr, Gerry in preference 
to Dr. Godwin had been very wise. 

“Well, where is Gerry? If he wants me to 
look at his patient why isn’t he here to meet me?” 

“He will be in my office as soon as he fin- 
ishes his coffee. Dr. Godwin. Won’t you come in ? 
I will tell you about the patient while we wait,” 

But once there, with the Doctor looking down 
upon her rather ferociously from his great height, 
she felt the words she was about to say stick in 
her throat. Desperation drove her to the first 
lie inspiration suggested. 


THE LITTLE WOELD 


33 


“Dr. Godwin, Mrs. Godwin returned to the 
city today. On her way from the station her taxi 
was overturned and she was injured.” 

The Doctor gripped her shoulder. “Is she 
dead?” he thundered. 

“No, she is not dead, but seriously injured. 
The chauffeur telephoned Dr. Gerry and he 
brought her right here. He saw that immediate 
operation was the only means of saving her life, 
so took it upon himself to do so — operate, I 
mean.” 

“Why did not the chauffeur telephone me?” 

“Perhaps he did, and you were out. I have 
no way of knowing.” 

“Where is he?” 

“You will have to ask Dr. Gerry. Mrs. God- 
win is in sixteen. She had concussion and Dr. 
Gerry did trephine. Will you come and see her? 
I will send Dr. Gerry up.” 

She got up and led the way to Sixteen, leav- 
ing the Doctor there, and then she went down 
stairs to tell Dr. Gerry of what she had done, 
knowing that he would be relieved to have gotten 
out of the situation so easily for the time being 
at least. 


CHAPTER THREE. 

The Probationer. 

Mary Davis woke with a start at the sound 
of the rising gong that rang shrilly through the 
Nurses’ Home every morning at six o’clock. It 
was almost a minute before she realized where 
she was, then she got out of bed hastily. She 
had a confused recollection of coming to the hos- 
pital the evening before, of many figures in white 
uniform, some who greeted her kindly, others 
who merely gave her an appraising glance or 
ignored her altogether. 

Looking around the small, neat room, her 
eyes lighted on a white printed card hanging on 
the inside of her door, and she crossed the room 
to read it. Standing there in her long night 
gown she had the look of a child about her, al- 
though she was a tall girl, her face still held its 
childish curves, and the eyes were full of dreams 
and faith. 

The card was headed, “Rules for Nurses,’’ 
and read: 

“Junior nurses rise at 6 a. m. Breakfast 
from 6:30 to 7:30 a. m. Lunch from 1 to 2 p. 


34 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


35 


m. and dinner at 7 : 30 p. m. Off duty at 8 p. m, 

“Senior nurses rise at 6:30 a. m., breakfast 
at 7 a. m. and go on duty at 8 a. m. Lunch at 
12 m. and dinner at 6:30 p. m. Off duty at 8 
p. m. 

“Each nurse is entitled to two hours off duty 
each day for rest and recreation, one afternoon 
and evening a week from 1 to 10 p. m., one eve- 
ning a week from 8 to 10 p. m,, and one late 
permit a month. Also four hours on Sunday. 
Each morning the head nurse will write the hours 
of off-duty assigned to each nurse, on the black- 
board in the office. 

“During the rest hours, and excepting the 
specified evenings and afternoons, the nurses are 
not to leave the grounds without permission. 

“All lights must be out, and all nurses ready 
to retire at 10 p. m.” 

Mary dressed quickly, thinking the while of 
the rules — the day ahead, the wonder of the work 
she was about to take up, the work that would 
place her side by side with the one she loved best, 
her father — that good old country doctor who was 
everyone’s helper and friend. Some day when her 
training days were over she would be able to help 
him. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on 
her door, and a first-year nurse put her head in. 
“Ready?” she called. “We all have to go over 
to breakfast in line.” So buttoning her apron 
hastily, she joined the group of girls in the hall 
outside. They greeted her carelessly, in free, 
good comradeship that made her almost at once 


36 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


one of them, and went on with their conversation 
— a bit of gossip picked up from a senior nurse, 
a free word here and there of the staff surgeons, 
calling them lightly by their first names, a cer- 
tain freedom of discussion that later when they 
were seniors they would avoid. 

When they had gathered around the small 
tables, four at each, Mary spoke timidly, “Isn’t 
it customary to have prayers in the morning and 
evening?’’ 

Her innocent words were greeted in various 
ways by the girls; some looked at her in amaze- 
ment, others laughed, and one little fair-haired 
nurse said, “God, listen to the kid! Prayers!’’ 

A tall, dark girl, seeing the hurt in Mary’s 
eyes, came to her rescue. “For shame, Peters! 
If Miss Murray heard you swearing she would 
transfer you back to ward work. She says it is 
bad enough to have the girls swearing in the 
wards, but she simply won’t have them swearing 
in the private rooms.” She turned to Mary. 
“They always have prayers in the hospitals run 
by the Sisters, but here it has never been a prac- 
tice. In fact it is only occasionally in an emer- 
gency hospital like this that they find time for 
prayers.” 

“Catch old Murray stopping long enough 
for prayers! He thought eating a waste of time. 
Wonder what he is doing now — driving some poor 
unfortunate nurse through the lower regions.” 

“Hush, Peters ! Miss Murray might hear you, 
and after all he was her father.” 

“Yes, but I do not think she mourns for him 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


37 


much more than any of the others who worked 
under him,” answered the irrepressible Peters. 
“How are things down in the ward since I left? 
Does Norton manage to get on without me ?” 

“Norton has been transferred to the surgery. 
Henry has the ward now. It is heavy this week 
too — two extra beds, as far as I can see you are 
the only junior who has any cinch. Perhaps now 
that Norton has gone, and you would have no 
one to scrap with. Miss Murray will put you back.” 

“I wish she would. There is no cinch spe- 
cially in Eleven. The old hen won’t let me out 
of her sight. Then Godwin expects me to know as 
much about the case as he does.” 

“They say the patient in Eleven can’t get 
better — that Godwin took a long chance in operat- 
ing, and lost. That is why she is put in Eleven 
out of sight. Godwin sure does hate to lose a 
case.” 

“And I suppose I will have to stick with the 
old devil until she dies. I don’t blame Mr. Gray 
for not coming to see her often — she must have 
lead him a life of it, before he had her sent here.” 

“He comes in the evenings, Pete. Glory, with 
her angel face has cut you out — didn’t you know ?” 

Miss Peters threw up her hands in mock hor- 
ror. “Never!” Then she laughed lightly. “Glory 
better not let Mrs. Grey see her looking at his 
lordship. She has the eyes and ears of a hawk, 
and the suspicion, of an; East Side policeman. 
She knows well enough, that the old man is not 
averse to pretty girls, and also that he wouldn’t 


38 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


mind in the least if she stepped out tomorrow.” 

“How is Mrs. Godwin getting on? Sixteen is 
right across the corridor from you Peter, have 
you been in?” 

“Nothing doing! She has two specials, and 
I never nosey around specials. It isn’t healthy.” 

“Say girls, there is some mystery about Mrs. 
Godwin,” the speaker lowered her voice and 
glanced hastily over her shoulder, “I over-heard 
Jones and Miss Murray talking about her yes- 
terday. Seems she was found away out on the 
River Road under an overturned car — ^not com- 
ing home from the station in a taxi as every one 
supposed. She was out there with a man, but he 
disappeared after the accident.” 

“Are you sure?” all the tables turned their 
attention to the speaker. 

“Of course I am sure. I heard the whole 
story. I was in the linen closet by the smoking 
room door, and they were talking in the corridor 
outside.” 

“You are the darndest for hiding in closets 
listening to conversations that in no way con- 
cern you. Gates,” Peters said quietly. 

“I notice you are all anxious to hear what I 
have to tell,” the other retorted sharply. 

“Be still, Peters. Never mind her. Gates, tell 
us about it, do!” 

“Yes, do go on. Gates, we want to hear. 
Pete always has to have her little say — don’t mind 
her.” 

“Well,” Gates went on, somewhat mollified 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


39 


by the attention shown her, she was not a favorite 
among the girls, and they only listened to her 
when she has a choice bit of gossip to impart, 
so she was in the habit of hiding in any available 
comer to gather up stray bits of conversation 
from the seniors of staff. “They were talking 
right outside the door, and Miss Murray was 
telling Doctor Jones that since the night of the 
accident she was always in terror that Godwin 
would find out the truth. Now that Mrs. God- 
win was better, she did not know just what to 
do. Jones said that the only thing to do, was 
to put it up to Mrs. Godwin and let her decide 
what she wanted done about it. Then they went 
on to speak of the mystery of the whole thing, 
and what was she doing out on the River Road, 
when she was supposed to be in the mountains 
some where. Jones said the only solution was 
that she had met a man at the Wayside Inn, and 
gone driving with him.” Finding that the girls 
were all interested. Gates prolonged the story, 
adding certain details of her own, inspired by the 
attention she was receiving. They greeted the 
story each according to her way, but it was char- 
acteristic of little Miss Peters that she showed 
little interest, merely remarking, “Someday 
Gates, you will get caught sneaking around cor- 
ners and listening to things that are none of your 
business then something awful will happen to 
you.” 

The entrance of the senior nurses put a sud- 
den stop to the conversion, and the juniors fin- 


40 


THE LITTLE WOBLD 


ished their breakfast in almost silence, they knew 
better than to let the seniors hear them gossip. 

Presently, the half-past gong sent them out 
of the dining room, where they separated, each 
going to her own particular duty, leaving Mary 
Davis standing alone in the big general office. 
Her mind was a chaos of broken ideas, she had 
come here, her mind a clean page on which she 
meant to write daily, the things she was to learn, 
and now the first line writen there was a mass 
of jumbled lettering that her pain and amaze- 
ment refused to read. Joan Murray had been 
right when she had said to Lessing Jones that 
the cleaner the heart, the more can be written 
therein. 

She wandered about aimlessly for an hour, 
every one seemed busy, intent on her own work. 
Once she ventured to ask a passing senior what 
she could do, but the girl answered shortly that 
she would have to wait until Miss Murray gave 
her orders. 

So, since Miss Murray did not breakfast until 
nine, she was obliged to spend the greater part 
of the morning in waiting, so that some of the 
glory of service was lost in watching others do- 
ing the work. But finally. Miss Murray sent 
for her, and one of the junior nurses showed her 
the way to Miss Murrays private office. 

She tapped timidly on the half open door, 
and Joan Murry looked up from her desk and 
bade her come into the room and be seated, then 
she went on with her writing. After a moment 
she turned and spoke. 


THE LITTLE WOELD 


41 


“So,” she said, “you wish to become a nurse? 
Can you tell me, just why you have chosen this 
a? your profession?” 

The girl looked down, and was silent for 
the space of a moment, but when she spoke it 
was with a little rush of enthusiasm. “My father 
is a country doctor, and I have always thought 
his work so wonderful. I should like to be able 
to help him, he needs a nurse so often, and there 
are not many in the country. A nurse can help 
him so much.” 

A faint smile curved Joan Murray’s lips. 
“At least you are entering the school with the 
right idea — to be of service. There is a beauti- 
ful motto used in the training schools, it reads, 
“Ich dien,” and means, “I serve.” Each nurse 
should carry it in her heart throughout her train- 
ing, and after she goes out into the world. I 
am sorry to say all nurses do not do so, some- 
times they forget that their work means serving. 
Perhaps the hard work of the training school kills 
their purpose, perhaps other interests make them 
forget, or perhaps, the girls sometimes enter the 
life with no thought of serving. 

“I ask all the girls when they come to me, 
why they have taken up the work. Mostly I 
can judge from their answers why they are here, 
but not what effect the work will have upon them. 
The Hospital is a strange little world of its own, 
no matter with what thoughts you enter it, it 
gives to you something that you have never had 
before, and it takes something away. It gathers 


42 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


around you a thousand tiny threads that you can 
never break, for they hold you as firmly as bands 
of steal It tries to the upmost of your endurance, 
both your mental and physical strength. It shows 
you a side of humanity that you will never see 
elsewhere; for sickness and death, strip from 
souls the veneering that in every day life covers 
them. It shows you the best of life, and it shows 
you the worst. It shows you the beauty of sacri- 
fice and the uselessness of it too. It is a great 
character builder, this life you have entered, if 
your strength is great enough you will absorb the 
beauty of it, but if you are weak you will miss 
the beauty and be engulfed in the bitterness of 
disillusionment. 

“I say these things to you now, but you 
will not understand them for some time to come, 
then you will remember; and see more clearly 
just what I mean,” she paused, and for a moment 
a wonderful smile lit up her face. “I dare say 
you have already read the list of rules on your 
door. There are others on hospital etiquette that 
I should like you to remember. Miss Corey, the 
head nurse, will tell them to you and assign you 
some duty. Remember, Miss Davis, that this is 
a work that at all times requires all that is best 
in you, and in the humblest and most revolting 
task you must do faithfully your best, that is 
the secret of good nursing.” 

Mary Davis remembered that talk many 
months after, although at the time it was con- 
fused with many other things. And so began and 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


43 


ended her first day, a medley of things she must 
learn and unlearn, of idols that had lost a little 
of their security, of ideals just a little shaken, of 
faith that had in it a trace of wonder, and yet 
all covered with a cloak of strangeness and un- 
reality, that hid for the present any clear thought. 
Tired, a little lonely, a little homesick for the dear 
faces she loved, she lay down on her narrow bed 
and slept. 


CHAPTER FOUR. 

Mrs. Godwin. 

Joan Murray sat in her office thinking. The 
breeze from the window blew her soft curls about 
her small face, and carried to her nostrils the 
scent of many flowers, to her ears the droning 
of humming birds and bees. Summer in all its 
molten glory called to her, summer that was about 
to spread her wings and fly away, paused to give 
one last beautiful impression to those who loved 
her best. But Joan did not heed her call, in her 
mind were many things, moving back and forth 
like figures in a dream. With Mrs. Godwin slow- 
ly recovering from her accident, it was hard to 
tell just what might develop, or how soon the 
doctor would find out the truth, whatever that 
truth might be. Mrs. Godwin had been very quiet 
since her recovery to consciousness, she had 
scarcely spoken to anyone, but Joan had noticed 
half pityingly that her eyes often followed her 
husband about her room with something very like 
veiled terror. Something else Joan had noticed, 
and that was that strange wistful looking for 
someone or something that never came. Other 
problems were in Joan’s mind, too; with Doctor 
44 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


45 


Chang coming to the Hospital daily for no appar- 
ent reason, intruding himself upon her presence, 
watching her with those beautiful mocking eyes 
of his, following her around and intriguing her 
into light conversation with — worse still, chatting 
with the prettiest nurses in the wards, taking 
their attention from their work, laughing in his 
free and easy way with them. There was nothing 
in his manner either to them or to herself, that 
she could openly resent, but he was setting them 
all a bad example, and demoralizing the wards, 
for he was in the habit of including the entire 
assembly within earshot, patients, nurses, ward 
maids or visitors, and enveigling them to join in 
with him. There were other things too, things 
that came to her through bits of corridor gossip, 
and whispers in the wards intercepted by the head 
nurses and carried to her, some of the nurses 
were disobeying rules, someone had sneaked into 
the Nurses’ Home very late the night before, 
two of the nurses had been seen more than once 
at an Inn some miles distant from the City noted 
for its questionable reputation. The new pro- 
bationer was not doing well, Joan wondered if it 
were worth while keeping her on to the end of 
her probation, but nurses were scarce, and she 
had promised Doctor Jones to give her a fair trial. 
Mary Davis was a puzzle to Joan, she had an 
amazing stupidity in learning what she should. 
She was a sweet girl, innocent and eager to learn, 
but as some flowers absorb the poisons of the air, 
so did she absorb the poisons of the Hospital, 


46 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


leaving the better things to others less innocent 
and less eager to learn. So on the young shoul- 
ders the burden of a thousand small cares pressed 
hard, bending the back to premature old age. 

She rose with a sigh as a bell rang for the 
second time, and as she went out into the hall she 
glanced at the register, and saw that Sixteen was 
calling. “Where is Miss Perry?” she asked a 
passing nurse. “Never mind I will go in myself.” 

“Did Mrs. Godwin want something?” she asked 
smiling a little as she entered the room. 

The pale face on the pillow brightened, “Oh, 
Joan, I am so glad it is you. I am so tired of my 
own company, and thoughts, I rang for Miss 
Perry, she is better than no one.” 

“A doubtful compliment for my best nurse.” 
Joan came over and sat down by the bed. “How 
are you this afternoon?” 

“I am better I suppose,” Mrs. Godwin said 
wearilj'’, “but, oh dear, why could I not have died ? 
It is so hard to come back to this tangle of life 
again.” 

“Yes, I daresay it is. Most people find it so 
after a serious illness, but you have a great deal 
to live for, after all,” Joan said, looking at the 
other thoughtfully. 

The woman on the bed threw out her hands 
in a gesture of bitter helplessness. “Oh, you can 
never understand, Joan — how can you? Tell me, 
what have I that I want most ? What will I have 
when Doctor Godwin finds out the truth about 
me — and he must surely do so soon. Tell me Joan 
how have you kept it from him so long?” 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


47 


“Kept what from him, my dear?” 

“Oh Joan, do not pretend you do not know 
what every one must know now, that I was driving 
on the River Road with another man, when the 
car went over the bank. Was he killed? Don’t 
you see Joan that this terrible suspense is driv- 
ing me mad. I must know, and you must be the 
one who can tell me best. When I was so ill and 
I thought surely I must die, it did not matter, but 
now — tell me who brought me here Joan ? I have 
lain here all these days wondering, hoping, pray- 
ing when I could, but never knowing. Only what 
you told me that first day when I came back to 
consciousness — not to worry for no one knew — 
saved me from going mad. Oh tell me Joan, is 
he dead — and who brought me here ?” 

Joan reached down and took the two quiver- 
ing restless hands in hers, “Now dear Mrs God- 
win, I will talk to you on this subject only on one 
condition, and that is that you do not become ex- 
cited. I think that it will ease your mind to talk 
to me, for the suspense is retarding your recovery. 
I will tell you all I know, and when I am finished 
you may tell me what you want me to know.” 
Very gently Joan told the story of the mysterious 
phone call to Doctor Gerry, of the disappearance 
of the man who had telephoned, of the car 
stripped of all identification marks, of the opera- 
tion, and lastly what she had told Doctor Godwin, 
and as she talked she saw fear come and go in 
the beautiful eyes, then a wistful light take its 
place, and lastly she saw the dust of a broken idol 
cloud all else. 


48 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


There was a silence in the room for a time 
when she had finished, then the white lips spoke 
quietly, hopelessly, “He left me there alone to die 
— he had no thought but to get away.” 

“Perhaps he did what he thought was best, 
dear. At least he saved your name from being 
coupled with his. It has turned out for the best 
as it is, for unless you tell it your self, no on<» 
will ever know.” 

Presently Mrs. Godwin began speakmg in a 
low hopeless tone, her eyes fixed on the view 
from the window. “My story is not different 
from many others, it seems in spite of warnings, 
women — some women will be fools until they die. 
As you know Doctor Goldwin is much older than 
I, and a very hard and reticent man. I never 
understood him — perhaps I never tried, I don’t 
know, but I was lonely, and he let me go my way. 
Oh, Joan, you cannot know what loneliness and 
idleness does to a woman of my kind.” 

“No,” Joan said a little grimly, “no, I can 
scarcely know what it means to be idle enough 
to be lonely.” 

“No, and you may thank kind Providence for 
the work he has given you my dear. Ah! how 
wonderful to have always something of interest 
to do — and know that you are doing good always.” 

This time a faint smile curved Joan’s lips. 
“It is true, I do not have much time to do mis- 
chief.” 

“Then you do not know the things that come 
to tempt the idle, Joan. I was always looking for 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


49 


something to amuse me, something to relieve the 
deadly monotony of life, then — he came, I can- 
not tell you of him, Joan, but he was a man that 
woman will always love no matter what he does — 
so handsome — so careless and free — I do not know 
if I loved him or riot, I only knew that I would 
have gone to the very ends of the earth with him 
and been content. I thought he loved me, al- 
though he never told me in so many words, but 
in a thousand little ways he seemed to make 
me see that I was the only woman in the 
world to him. I do not think I even thought 
how it all must end until he went away, and I 
did not see him for two years. You should have 
thought that two years of silence and absence 
would have cured me, but I never stopped long- 
ing for him all those years, or did I doubt in my 
heart that once he returned, that I would give 
myself to him. How we can fool our own heart's 
and make them believe what we will. I called 
his very silence and neglect, noble, not indif- 
ference which it really was. I was in the White 
Mountains when I heard of his return to the City, 
and regardless of the fact that he had sent me 
no word, I rushed to meet him. We met at the 
Wayside Inn, and then we drove out over the 
River Road towards our mutual friend, Mrs. 
Wheaton, It had been there we had met in other 
days. It was my plan to stay for a time with 
her that we might meet without the doctor’s 
presence — my plan, not his, now that I remember 
it. We had not gone far, when we came to one 


60 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


of those awful bends, and he never slowed — I only 
remember that, nothing more. That is all, Joan, 
how often have you listened to just such a story 
or read of it? Since I have lain here I can see 
things more clearly — how cheap and miserable 
it all was — ^but what have I to live for? What 
will I do if George finds out and tries to divorce 
me?” The white lips twisted into a bitter smile. 
“A few weeks ago nothing would have pleased 
me more, now divorce means that my last refuge 
is gone. I am not like you, Joan, I cannot stand 
alone, I need life and love.” She lay back wearily, 
lifelessly. “I am only a poor little fool, Joan, 
caught in the meshes of my own folly, do not 
blame me too much.” 

“I do not blame you so much dear. Why 
should one' human being judge another, when 
each of us sees with different eyes.” 

The door from the corridor swung sudden- 
ly open and Doctor Godwin’s stocky form filled 
it, a white, panting, passion-crazed man. Joan 
springing to her feet, thought only of saving the 
frail woman on the bed from the anger in those 
blazing eyes, where-in she read that in some way 
he had learned the truth at this inopportune time. 

“Liar!” he sneered at her, “You liar — you 
sneaking, white-livered Ananias — get out of my 
sight.” 

He strode across the room, pushing Joan 
none too gently out of his way as he went, and 
seizing his wife’s hands pulled them from her 
face which she had covered at sight of him. 
“You wanton!” he thundered. 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


51 


Mrs. Godwin screamed and cowered away 
from him. “Don’t kill me George — I am not that 
— truly I am not!” 

“Kill you — ^you lying wanton — no, I will do 
worse, I will kill this sneaking lover of yours 
first, and tend to you afterwards.” 

“No! No! Oh, Joan!” and Mrs. Godwin fell 
back on her pillows in a dead faint. 

Joan, no longer a white-faced child caught 
in a lie, but a nurse, superintendent in her own 
hospital, leaned over the patient. Her face was 
a mask of ice as she gave the emergency call, 
three rings of the bell, knowing that at this hour 
Doctor Jones would be in the house, and would 
answer the bell of Sixteen almost as soon as a 
nurse. 

“Doctor Godwin leave the room at once, if 
you have not already killed your wife, your pres- 
ence in the room when she opens her eyes will 
do so. Go!” she pointed to the door, through 
which he had come a few moments before. 

As quickly as his anger had arisen, it died 
down, leaving him white and shaken, a broken 
man before her. He would have spoken, but she 
stopped him with a gesture, just as the door 
opened and Miss Perry, and Doctor Jones entered 
the room. 

Doctor Jones gave Joan one look, and their 
eyes met for one brief second, there was never 
need of words between these two, and then he took 
the older man by the shoulders and led him from 
the room. 


52 


THE LITTLE WOBLD 


Sometime later when Joan was able to leave 
Mrs. Godwin to the care of Miss Perry she found 
Doctor Jones waiting for her in the corridor, and 
led the way into her office. “Well,” she said, 
when they both were seated and the door closed 
behind them, “This is a nice thing to have hap- 
pen just now, when things were apparently going 
on so nicely.” 

He shrugged, “A hospital is the darndest 
place for other people’s troubles!” Then his face 
grew grave. “It would have been best after all 
to have had it out with Godwin at the first. This 
is serious. Godwin is a good man, but a hard 
one. A wrong like this goes very deep with him, 
he would forgive murder, or another crime, but 
this — never! The one thing that has saved the 
day so far is that he does not know the man.” 

“Then he does not know ?” 

“No, he doesn’t know — and if she has the 
sense to keep her mouth shut, he never will.” 

“But how did he find out about it?” 

Doctor Jones frowned. “He heard two of the 
junior nurses talking about it. One, I believe 
repeated the whole miserable story to the other, 
with plenty of added spice to make it interest- 
ing. Embellishments for the sake of the thrill. 
Of course the nurses did not know Doctor God- 
win was listening, nor I daresay did they realize 
that they were tearing to shreds a patient’s char- 
acter.” 

“I did not think that any of the nurses knew 
the story. Less. We have been very careful 


THE LITTLE WOELD 53 

even Miss Perry, her special, was not supposed 
to know anything about it. Doctor Gerry will be 
angry over this, I know.” 

“Didn’t he tell you about the case before 
one of the nurses?” 

“The night he brought her in ? No, they were 
quite out of earshot, I made sure of that. I am 
afraid Mrs. Godwin’s condition is very grave 
again.” 

“It must not get outside. Good Lord, after 
all the trouble we took to hush the thing up. The 
man himself made a very thorough job of clear- 
ing out and, establishing an alibi.” 

“Doctor Jones do you know who the man 

is?” 

Lessing Jones gave the girl a keen glance. 
“If I know Joan, it will do no harm or good to 
anyone. Personally, I do not blame him for what 
he has done, it was undoubtedly the wisest thing 
he could have done. He would have made matters 
much worse by hanging around. I only hope Mrs. 
Godwin will see things in the same light. If she 
does it will all blow over and be forgotten. Per- 
haps it will teach her not to go driving on the 
River Road with strange men. I went to the Inn 
where they have tea — I did not go for informa- 
tion, but to see how safe our man was. Money 
covers up many things, and our man covered his 
way with a goodly layer by the blank wall I ran 
up against.” 

“You men always shield one another, don’t 
you. It was not all her fault. Less, yet she was 


54 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


the one to pay the full price. Somehow the wo- 
man always pays, while the man goes free.” 


CHAPTER FIVE. 


The Talebearer. 

Joan Murray rang the bell on her desk as she 
spoke. “I wonder if I cannot put my hand on the 
girl who spread this gossip throughout the school. 
One nurse will not tell on another — I hope I will 
never come to asking that, it is a thing acquired 
in too many training schools — ^but how am I to 
find out if I do not? Will you ask Miss Peters 
to come here at once,” she said to the girl who 
answered the bell. 

“Peters?” Jones said thoughtfully. “Is that 
the little fair-haired thing specially in Eleven? 
She does not seem to me, the kind to do a thing 
like this.” 

“No, but I can trust her to tell the truth — I 
do not watch the nurses for nothing. I think I 
know the girl, but I want proof. Miss Peters 
will give it to me without knowing she has told 
ansrthing.” 

Miss Peters came to the door, her pretty face 
flushed. Summons to the office always meant a 
change of work, or that someone had gotten them- 
selves into trouble. 

“Come in. Miss Peters, I want you a moment. 

65 


66 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


No Doctor Jones it is not necessary for you to go 
— Miss Peters do you know anything of what the 
school is saying of the patient in Sixteen?’ 

A mask fell over the pretty face — as though 
she had suddenly closed a door and kept guard 
over it. “No, Miss Murray.” 

“Two nurses were overheard in the corridor, 
talking of that patient, they repeated a piece of 
wicked gossip, and I have reason to believe that 
the story started at the first year breakfast tables. 
If it was told then, you must certainly have heard 
it. Is that not so?” 

“Yes, Miss Murray, I — I heard them talking 
about it.” 

“Did you ever repeat to anyone what you 
heard?” 

“No — no. Miss Murray, I never did. I never 
thought of it again except when someone spoke 
of it. Truly I didn’t.” 

Joan smiled, and at that smile all the young 
nurse’s embarresment fell from her, she turned 
with an answering smile, “You know I didn’t 
Miss Murray.” 

“Yes, I know you are not interested in that 
kind of gossip, or at least I hope not — ^but I should 
like very much to know just who did it!” 

“Oh Miss Murray, don’t ask me. I can’t tell 
on a classmate. I’d love to, for she deserves it, 
but I can’t.” 

“No, I suppose that you cannot do that — ^but 
if I happen to know who the girl in question was, 
it would not be any harm for you to tell me just 
how she came to find out.” 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


67 


Miss Peters looked from Joan to Lessing 
Jones, “She heard you and Doctor Jones talk- 
ing about it one morning in the corridor — please 
Miss Murray don’t ask me any more — I knew she 
would get caught some day and something awful 
would happen to her, but I can’t tell on her.” 

“Very well, Miss Peters, that will be all, 
thank you, but when you go out will you please 
send Miss Gates in to me,” 

Jones laughed shortly as the door closed be- 
hind the girl. “You do not exactly ask them to 
tell the one on the other, but there is not a great 
deal of difference. I daresay the little Peters 
means well enough, but I would not like to have 
her on the witness stand and not want her to tell 
all she knew,” 

“There is a great deal of difference between 
her frankness and tale bearing, you will admit 
Less. She is a nice child, that even the training 
school cannot harden or spoil. There are a few 
like her, and I wish there were more, but they 
do not last long in the profession, they usually 
marry directly they are through their training.” 

“Are you going to catecize the whole class, 
down to my little prob ?” 

“No, that will scarcely be necessary. The 
girl I have just sent for, is the gossip of the class. 
She lives and thrives on gossip — in hiding in cor- 
ners and listening — Ah, come in Miss Gates. 

Miss Gates looked a little white and fright- 
ened. Being a sneak, she was also a coward. She 
both hated and feared Joan Murray, as always 
such a nature unreasoning, hates its superior. 


58 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


“Miss Gates, did you by any chance, repeat at 
the breakfast table, something you heard Doctor 
Jones and myself talking about in the corridor 
one morning?” 

“No, Miss Murray.” 

“You are quite sure, that standing behind 
the door in the corridor linen closet, you did not 
overhear Doctor Jones and myself discussing the 
patient in Sixteen?” 

“No, Miss Murray.” 

“Then you never heard any gossip about that 
patient?” 

“No, Miss Murray.” 

“How is it that you have not heard what has 
been a choice morsel in the corridor gossip for 
some time?” 

“I don’t know. Miss Murray.” 

“It was repeated at breakfast one morning, 
at the junior breakfast tables. Have you been 
late for breakfast any morning within the last 
three weeks?” 

“No, Miss Murray.” 

“It seems strange does it not, that you are 
the only nurse who did not hear it? Now Miss 
Gates, as I happen to know who was listening in 
the linen closet that morning, and also who re- 
peated what she heard to the other nurses, I 
know who is telling me an untruth. I can forgive 
a sin much more readily than I can forgive the 
denial of that sin.” 

“Peters lied, if she told you I did it. She 
told it herself.” Miss Gates said under her breath, 
but loud enough to be heard. 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


59 


Joan gave the girl a keen look. “Miss 
Gates,” she said gently. “I should be sorry to 
judge one of my nurses wrongly. Miss Peters 
did not tell me that you told gossip at the break- 
fast table. While sitting here, I happened o re- 
member that the morning Doctor Jones and I 
were talking about this thing, I saw you come 
out of the linen closet a few moments after we 
left the spot. I did not attach any significance 
to it at the time, in fact it had not entered my 
mind that a nurse would do such a thing, but for 
the occurrance of this shocking demonstration of 
disloyalty. I suppose you realize that you have 
broken one of the rules of honor in a hospital. 
You have betrayed your superintendent, one of 
your staff doctors, but worse still you have be- 
trayed a patient within our walls. What have 
you to say for yourself. Miss Gates ?” 

But the girl retained a sullen silence, and 
after a moment Joan went on. “You will take 
Miss Henry’s place on night duty tomorrow night, 
with the ward full of sick patients, and Miss 
Smith over you, you will find very little oppor- 
tunity for listening in comers. Also please do 
not leave the grounds again until I give you per- 
mission.” 

As the girl left the room, Lessing Jones said, 
“Why give her such an easy punishment, she de- 
served more.” 

Joan Murray smiled a little crooked smile, 
“You have never been subjected to night duty 
under Miss Smith’s iron rule as I have, or you 
would not say that.” 


60 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


“You have an amazing amount of patience, 
Joan.” 

“I have a sense of humor, which is a greater 
asset in this work. Less. If poor father had had 
a little more of it he would have lived longer I 
believe.’ 

He got up presently and went out, leaving 
her alone with her thoughts, a little figure in the 
big chair by the window, her eyes fixed on the 
outer scene before her. The Nurses’ Home with 
its beautiful grounds lay just beneath, beyond 
rose the high wall of the Convent with the low- 
descending sun touching its gold cross with tender 
fingers of light. Far beyond she could catch the 
silver glimmer of the sea, the sea that she loved, 
and the faint wash of the waves came to her on 
the breeze. It was quiet and still and peaceful 
out there, the front of the Hospital faced the 
restless City, but here was only quiet country 
with the open road stretching out towards free- 
dom, the freedom she had never known. It never 
occurred to her that all mankind were prisoners, 
in the hand of an unknown Destiny. It never 
came to her that Freedom died long ago in the 
Garden of Eden, surrounding us all with prison 
bars. 

Long she sat there, her chin cupped in her 
hand, staring into space. The darkness settled 
around her, the curfew tolled out the hour clear- 
ly, the far off hum of the City, like the tired 
drone of bees, honey-laden, mingled with the 
distant roar of the ocean. She moved, and pil- 
lowed her head on her arm and lay still, her wide 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


61 


eyes looking out into the darkness that shut away 
her prison bars, leaving her to wander at will 
away from the sickness and pain and death, the 
cares of other hearts, into the scented gloom of 
a dream filled, joy-filled world. 

The harsh jangle of the telephone broke rude- 
ly into the stillness, and she came to herself with 
a start, pushing the tumbled hair out of her eyes 
with a childish gesture as she came to a sitting 
posture. But she let it ring again, a second time 
long and shrilly before she took the receiver from 
its hook. 


CHAPTER SIX. 

Doctor Chang. 

Mrs. Godwin lay at the point of death; the 
corridor was very quiet; the nurses moved about 
more softly than usual and kept as far as possi- 
ble from the closed door of Sixteen ; Joan had put 
another nurse on to help Miss Perry. 

Doctor Godwin haunted the Hospital, but he 
seldom asked after Mrs. Godwin, and never made 
any attempt to see her. Joan watching him 
wandering up and down, felt a wave of pity spring 
up in her heart for him, his face was so white 
and haggard, his shoulders drooped like those of a 
broken man. But she was yet to find that Doc- 
tor Godwin was not broken by any means. In 
fact she found it hard to even bend him. Once 
he stopped her in the corridor as she passed. 
“Miss Murray, I am afraid I said some hard 
things to you the other day in my anger. I have 
forgotten, but I am afraid I hurt you. Will you 
forgive a man who was mad with anger?” 

She held out her slim hand to him. “Do not 
think of that now doctor, I too have forgotten 
whatever you may have said — no, no, I am sure 
it was not you who spoke, but your anger.” 

62 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


63 


He took her hand then turned away quickly, 
but Joan seeing him in a chastened mood, grasped 
the opportunity to speak to him of what was on 
her mind. She drew him gently into the Xray 
room, which was always empty at that time of 
the day. “Please do not be angry at me again, 
if I say to you what I have been thinking of this 
thing. You have been my friend since I was a 
little child. I am not going to apologize for tell- 
ing you what I did that night, for when Mrs. God- 
win was so ill, it was no time to think of other 
things. We did not mean you to know until she 
grew better. By a strange coincidence Mrs. God- 
win and I were discussing it when you came into 
the room the other day.” 

“What did she tell you?” he said in a hard 
tone, and a little shiver of forbodding went 
through Joan. 

“It is a story only too common in our busy 
world Doctor Godwin, where the men are too busy 
and the women not busy enough. Forgive me 
doctor if I must hurt you in trying to make you 
understand.” 

“Go on, you can’t hurt me more than I have 
been already, but I doubt if you can make me un- 
derstand.” 

Looking into his face Joan doubted too, but 
she went on. “Miss Godwin loved you, but she 
was young and gay when she married you. She 
looked to you for love and protection, but you 
were a busy man, and oft-times forgot the little 
things a woman craves — attention and care — so 
she turned to life for them.” 


64 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


“And got them from another man, I see.” 

“Please, Doctor Godwin — ^try to understand 
— she meant no harm. She was not harming 
you.” 

“Not harming me? My God girl what are 
you talking about? Besides dragging my name in 
the gutter, is she not lying at the point of death?” 

“Your name has not been dragged in the 
gutter. Doctor Godwin, and is not likely to be un- 
less you persist in looking at things from the 
worst angle. There is no harm in a friendship 
between a man and a woman. She was lonely, 
perhaps so was he. They went for a ride togeth- 
er — you had been too busy to notice the telegram 
that she was coming home.” Joan did not stop to 
explain that some kind friend had sent that same 
telegram after the accident. “She was hurt — any 
woman would have been, so she turned to one who 
did not neglect her — she may have been indis- 
creet, but she was not wrong.” She stopped and 
looked into his hard face, stem and forbidding 
as she had always known it, and she knew that 
he was like a rock against which her puny 
strength might beat unavailingly, all her pitiful 
little lies were as naught to him. 

“You are only a romantic child Joan, whose 
sympathy is easily aroused by a pitiful tale. You 
are a loyal little soul, but you do not know what 
you are talking about.” 

In a sudden rush of emotion she held out her 
hands to him. “Oh, you hard, hard men ! A wo- 
man’s soul must always pay for your hardness, 
your coldness, your ambitions. What do you care 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


65 


if you trample her love under your feet, crush 
her feelings, bruise her heart, yet if she refuses 
to lie in the dust, and allow you to humiliate her, 
and turns to another for the care and love that is 
her right, you condemn her. You are cruel and 
hard, because you consider her only a secondary 
creature in this scheme of things, and you make 
her pay. No wonder women are coming up in 
arms against men like you. It is time they stood 
up for their own rights!” 

There was somehing of amazement in his 
eyes as he looked down at her. Then he laughed 
suddenly and hardly. “What are you talking 
about child? I have been hard and cruel to the 
woman I loved — trampled her love under her feet? 
You poor romantic child, with your ideas of wo- 
man’s rights. What do you know of life — ^this 
rotten life our woman lead. They are bad enough 
as they are — give them any more freedom, and we 
men — ^we decent ones at least, will have to leave 
for another planet. We slave to give them every- 
thing they want, and what do we get in return? 
They give our rights to some other man who is 
too wise to be married to them.” 

Joan laughed, and her laugh was like a tin- 
kle of ice. “What do you think a woman wants? 
You give her a house — a comfortable place to 
live in, enough to eat — no one could accuse you 
of cruelty — ^you don’t beat her it seems — perhaps 
she would be happier if you did, at least she would 
know you noticed her — you would give as much 
to your horse or dog. What do you think a 


66 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


woman wants? It isn’t these things she craves, 
but love, attention, little things that go far above 
money.” 

The face above her did not soften. “None of 
these things are an excuse for the faithfess lives 
these women lead. You mean well Joan, but you 
do not know life — ^the outside life we lead.” 

Without answering Joan turned and went out 
of the room. She had done what she could, but 
it seemed her effort had failed. She could only 
hope she had struck deeper than it seemed, into 
the quivering heart beneath the hard shell. 

In the general office Joan found Doctor 
Jones and Doctor Chang. Jones gave her a keen 
look, “You do not go out enough lately Miss Mur- 
ray, before you know it the summer weather will 
be gone, and you will have missed the best of 
it.” 

“Will you come out for a spin with me. Miss 
Murray, I have my roadster at the door,” Chang 
broke in eagerly. 

Joan looked from him to Doctor Jones. “I 
am afraid that it is impossible Doctor Chang, 
there are some out patients in the accident room 
to be attended to, and Doctor Jones will need me 
there. Besides it would be rather like breaking 
rules to go riding with you.” 

Lessing Jones shook his head. “Nonsense, 
Chang is not on the staff, and never expects to 
be, so there are no rules attached to him, as there 
are to me. It will do you a world of good to get 
away from the Hospital this afternoon, and I will 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


67 


get on nicely in the accident room without you as 
there are plenty of nurses.” 

“According to Jones, Miss Murray, the Hos- 
pital will get on beautifully without us this after- 
noon,” Chang said smilingly down at her with 
his golden eyes alight with eagerness. 

“But there is Mrs. Godwin — I really do not 
see my way clear to go Doctor Chang,” Joan de- 
murred. She was not quite sure that she want- 
ed to go, Chang fascinated her, something in his 
brilliant eyes, his restless ways, his very careless- 
ness filled her with a grave unrest, a thrill of 
fear. 

“You are not Mrs. Godwin’s nurse,” Jones 
spoke a trifle impatiently. “Please go with 
Chang.” He was urging her to go, because he 
knew in his heart he did not want her to go, and 
Jones was not one to allow his own heart to stand 
in the way of any pleasure that might come to 
Joan, even be that pleasure be given by another 
than himself. 

She smiled a little, and shrugged her should- 
ers. “When Doctor Jones takes that tone, he does 
not want me in the accident room. Very well 
Doctor Chang, I will be ready in a very few min- 
utes.” 

She looked more like a winsome child than 
what she was, Chang thought as he tucked the 
rug around her later and climbed in beside her. 

Soon they were out on the white ribbon of 
road that led far from the City, leaving the noise 
and care behind, free as the birds of the air, skim- 


68 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


ing along the smooth white road at a terrible pace, 
while the crisp air brightened their eyes and 
brought the red to their cheeks. 

By and by he slowed down a little and turned 
to her. “Where shall we go?” 

“Will you take the road by the sea, and drive 
a little slower? The air is so good, and I want 
to see the sea, it must be beautiful today.” 

“And then we can stop for tea at the Sea 
Gull’s Nest.” 

“Oh, that will take too long, I should be 
back before dinner time.” 

“Nonsense, it will not take long, and we will 
be back before sunset,’ he said, his brilliant eyes 
on her face. 

The clear air had gone to her head like very 
old wine, she felt as she looked out over the sea, 
stretching smooth and shining far towards the 
sky line, where the sun like a ball of fire hung, 
ready to drop into it before many hours had 
passed, that she would like to ride far into the 
sunset, leaving care and burdens behind, with 
the life tragedies of others. She was very silent 
during that ride, for something had come to life 
in her heart, that had long been smouldering 
there. Dreams filled her heart, more vivid be- 
cause that heart had been starved so long — she 
was free at last, free to do as she wished — never 
to go back to the prison life that had forever held 
her in a thousand bars of steel. 

Even when they sat on the balcony over their 
tea, with the ocean still stretching far beneath 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


69 


them, the dreams still lingered, and she saw her 
companion through a haze. 

Perhaps he caught and appreciated her mood, 
for after a time he leaned forward and touched 
her hand across the table. “Poor little girl!” 
he said very gently, “you do not have much time 
for fun do you?’ 

She came back to the present with a start, 
“I am afraid that I am a very dull companion, 
doctor — somehow the drive — ^the beauty of the sun 
upon the sea — everything — carried my thoughts 
far away. Will you forgive me?” 

He smiled, “Forgive you?” he said tenderly, 
“Did I not bring you out that you might have 
a few minutes of freedom and enjoyment. Dream 
if you wish little girl, it is what you need — ^time to 
dream — away from the prison house in which you 
dwell. I wish I might take you far away from it 
often.’ 

She gave him a surprised little glance, he had 
so nearly voiced her own thoughts. “It is kind 
of you to think of that,” she said gently, “You 
are right I have never had time to dream, and 
somehow I am one who needs dreams to feed my 
soul. So long have I lived without them that I 
sometimes fear that my soul is growing shriveled 
and old.” 

He leaned nearer to her, his hand lingering 
over hers, his fair handsome face bent low, his 
strange beautiful eyes sounding the depth of hers. 
“Perhaps I do understand,” he said in a low tone. 
“I have often watched your life in the Hospital, 


70 


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and thought of the life you might have led, and 
I curse the fate that has tied you to such a doom — 
and shut these prison doors behind you. Oh, little 
one, you think that others do not know what care 
means to you, but I have seen. I watch you day 
by day crush your dreams, and shut your wild 
free soul behind the bars of duty, and my heart 
yearns to give you your life and your chance.” 

She leaned back in her chair, still looking up 
at him, and one of her wonderful smiles lighted 
her face for a moment, a strange thing had en- 
tered her heart, to rise up and fill it with a warm- 
ing glow, but all that she said was, “I did not 
know that anyone could understand.” 

“Why should not I?” he said, and the fire in 
his eyes seemed to envelope her in a warm glow. 
“1 have known you only a few weeks, but I have 
felt the wonder of you — do you know that in all 
the world there is no one like you — so small — so 
beautiful and brave? Little hands filled with 
so many tasks — ^hard, hard tasks. Little feet to 
tred so steep a path, little body too small for the 
great heart and soul within.” 

“Don’t,” she said very softly, “I am not what 
you say — not any of those things. Sometimes I 
am afraid I have no heart, and my soul — oh, it 
is such a mean wizzened thing.” 

His hands closed over hers, until the little 
slim ones were almost crushed beneath the pres- 
sure. “You wonder girl! Don’t you understand 
me? For if you cannot see it, no words can ever 
tell you what I feel for you. Hush, do not stop 


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me! I know I am a cad to bring you here and 
startle you so, I did not mean to do so, but it 
has been my first chance alone with you, and I 
cannot help myself/ 

Her strange unfathomable eyes still looked 
into his, her face had paled a little, and the thing 
in her heart had swelled until it seemed to fill 
her whole being with a strange sweetness, and 
when she spoke it was in a low breathless tone. 
“What are you telling me?” 

He got to his feet and came to bend over her 
chair, “Don’t you see?” he said in a hushed tone. 
“I love you! I loved you the first time I saw 
you, and I shall love you until the day I die. I 
am in no ways worthy of your love, or of you — - 
I hope you will never know just how unworthy 
I am. I have made love to many women, but I 
never loved a woman until I saw you. Then I 
knew suddenly that there could be only one real 
love in a man's life that was worth while. Tell 
me, can you love me?” 

She turned to him, and something of the 
glory of the setting sun was in her upturned face. 
“You have startled me. I did not know you loved 
me. I have never known what love meant — I 
have never had time — give me time to think — 
time to get used to the strangeness of it all.” 

He caught both her hands again, “Ah, lit- 
tle one, little Joan, while you think, remember 
that I am not a good man. I have done much 
wrong, but my love for you is clean and true, I 
will try at least to keep it so. If you can but 


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love me, you can make of me what you will, but 
I am not worthy of your love.” 

She smiled again, and the wonder of that 
smile enveloped him in a blaze as she freed one 
hand and reached up to the ribbon on his tunic. 
“I would never call a man unworthy, who has 
honored the uniform as you have. Our uniform 
has honored many men and made them worthy, 
but I know that as a soldier you have not needed 
the glory of the uniform.” 

He shook his head wearily, and a strangely 
bitter look crept over his face. “You make me 
afraid and ashamed. I am not what you think, 
I can only thank my country for the honor it 
gave to me in making me a soldier. Don’t judge 
me by my uniform, Joan. Don’t let it cover up 
my blacker sins. Strip my soul of its glamor 
and judge it alone. Don’t you see dear girl — 
something in you brings out all that is best in 
me always. I cannot even cover up my sins to 
you, though I want you more than all the world 
besides.” 

She rose to her feet, “Give me time to think,” 
she said gently. “Love is too strange and wonder- 
ful a thing to think of lightly, I cannot say more 
today. Please take me home. 

Gently he bent over her, and kissed lightly, 
reverently her fingers, and then they went down 
together to the waiting car. 

So they rode home in the gathering dusk, 
away from the crimson and gold sunset, that 
turned the sea before them into a lake of blood. 


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73 


touched with a million arrows of light, into the 
shadowy future of the dusk. 

The girl sat in a haze of sweet dreams that 
filled her eyes with a soft light, and she wonder- 
ed vaguely if the mad beating of her heart meant 
happiness. But the man’s face was drawn and 
cold, like carved marble in the dim light, and 
strangely bitter lines were etched around his care- 
less mouth. Strange phantom shapes had risen 
up before him. Haunting Remorse pointed skin- 
ny fingers of scorn at him, learing at him with 
her weary, hopeless eyes. Regret, clad in the 
black garments of Grief whispered to him bitter 
truths, while their child Despair, stared into his 
eyes with grim sorrow, and in his ears rang the 
mocking laughter of the Past. 

Suddenly with a quick bitter laugh, Chang 
flung aside the clinging thoughts, startling the 
girl by his side, but he smiled at her as she turned 
her head, and reached out to put his hand for a 
moment over hers in a sudden pressure. 


CHAPTER SEVEN. 

Love and Duty. 

There was a tap to the office door, and Doc- 
tor Godwin appeared in the door way in answer 
to Joan’s “Come in.” 

She looked up at him with a little smile, it 
was some weeks since their difference in the Xray 
room, and they had not talked long upon any 
subject since. Now she gestured towards a chair, 
and said lightly, “What can I do for Doctor God- 
win this morning?” 

“I came in to tell you that I would not take 
up the staff work for the fall, as I am going west 
for a time,” he said sitting down heavily. 

“Are you taking Mrs. Godwin away on a 
trip?” Joan asked quietly. “It will do her a world 
of good.” 

“I am not taking Mrs. Godwin,” the doctor 
said stiffly. “She is remaining in the city with 
friends.” 

“Oh, I am sorry, the trip would have done 
her good.” 

“Joan, what is the good of keeping up that 
tone? You know how things are between Mrs. 
Godwin and myself. I am going away, where I 
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76 


can think things over. When I come back we can 
settle matters better. Mrs. Godwin will go from 
here to friends as I have closed up the town 
house.” 

“And you are going away, leaving her alone 
among strangers, without even the protection of 
your love ?” 

She is fortunate to have the protection of 
my name, after what has happened. I have 
turned my work over to Gerry, and Jones can 
look after anything that Gerry has not time for,” 
he rose to his feet. 

“Very well doctor. I think that you have 
been very hard, I did not think you could be so 
cruel to a woman in Mrs. Godwin’s condition.” 

“I, at least, am not responsible for Mrs. God- 
win’s condition,” he answered hardly. 

Joan’s eyes grew dark with anger. “I hold 
you responsible for her condition, as would any 
right-minded individual. If she dies it will be 
through your fault, and to no one else will be 
the blame.” 

“Doctor Gerry is convinced that she is quite 
out of danger,” he said cooly as he turned and 
went out. 

Joan went to Sixteen, where Mrs. Godwin 
was sitting, having so far recovered as to be able 
to be out of bed. As Joan came in she looked 
up from a bit of embroidery that she was toying 
with rather than working upon. She smiled at 
sight of Joan, but the girl noted that there were 
traces of tears on her cheeks. After a moment 


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she spoke of the subject. “Joan, George is going 
away, do you think he will ever come back?” 

“Yes, I think he will come back, Jeane. Ab- 
sence may teach him something.” 

“He has been very hard. He would not even 
let me try to explain., I am almost glad that he 
has gone — perhaps I am a coward Joan, but I 
want to put off the final issue as long as I can. 
If he divorces me, I will be done.” She laughed 
a hard laugh. “Once I would have been glad 
enough to have him do so— oh, Joan what a 
ghastly joke is life, it always gives us what we 
want most, when it is too late.” 

“He will not divorce you Jeane,” Joan said 
quitely. “He has no cause, nor will he be able to 
find one. Now will you tell me your plans, for I 
have something I want to tell you.” 

They sat for a long time, talking, before 
Joan got up to leave, and as she turned towards 
the door, Chang’s gay laugh sounded in the cor- 
ridor. Mrs. Godwin sprang to her feet, dropping 
her work, and her face grew white to the lips. 

Joan came over to her quickly. “What is it 
Jeane?” 

Jeane Godwin sank back into her chair. 
“Something startled me, my nerves are still bad. 
Even voices in the corridor give me a start some 
times, perhaps because the place is usually so 
quiet. Who was making a noise just now?” 

Joan looked at her keenly, her own face had 
flushed at that light laugh, but now a question 
formed in her mind, as she answered the other. 


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77 


“It must be Doctor Chang, he is the only one who 
calls out to the nurses in that tone.” 

Mrs. Godwin looked at her and her eyes nar- 
rowed, “Chang,” she had noted the flush that had 
come to Joan’s face. “Does he come here?” 

Joan was! still looking at her with a puzzled 
expression in her eyes, “Yes, do you know him?” 

“I used to before he went to France. He used 
to be about a lot with some people I know. I 
thought for a moment it sounded like someone 
else,” she spoke so causually that the something 
that had hushed Joan’s heart beats for a moment 
died. Then suddenly remembering Chang as she 
had first seen him the night of Mrs. Godwin's 
accident, she smiled with sudden relief. There 
were many voices alike in the world. 

In the corridor outside she met Chang, and 
greeted him gravely. “One is always aware of 
your presence,” she said. 

He looked down at her ignoring her speech. 
“May I come in and talk to you Joan?” 

“I never permit the staff to call me Joan,” 
she said. “It is an exceedingly bad habit.” 

“I heard Jones call you that?” 

“Doctor Jones has known me since childhood. 
He forgets sometimes, but not often.” 

“And I am not an old friend. Well I do not 
belong to the staff anyhow so that rule does not 
apply.” 

“At least you have all the privileges of the 
staff so you should try to abide by the rules. You 
will have to give up one or the other.” 


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“I will give up the privileges of the staff by 
all means,” he laughed pushing open the door 
for her, and following her into her office. 

She went over to the window and sat down, 
and he pulled a chair up beside her. She waited 
until he was seated, and then she spoke gravely. 
“I wish you would not follow me in here. Doctor 
Chang. It may seem a little thing to you, this 
talking to me when I am on duty, and bringing 
the touch of the outside world into the Hospital.” 

“A little thing! Good Lord it isn’t a little 
thing to me, Joan ! I love you, you beautiful child. 
When am I to see you if not when you are on 
duty. I have never seen you off duty.” 

“For a surgeon, doctor, you seem to know sur- 
prisingly little of hospital etiquette. Don’t you 
see how you are disturbing our little world, by 
acting as you do, by chatting with the girls in 
the wards, by idling around while others are 
working, retarding our work instead of helping.” 

He smiled at her in his careless, maddening 
way. “You need a bit of stirring up in here, your 
ways are too cut and dried — I’ll bet you would 
improve the school with some of my methods.” 

She laughed. It was impossible not to in 
the face of the absurity of his words, to her. But 
almost at once she grew grave again. “I daresay 
our rules do seem absurd to you. Doctor Chang, 
but without them there would be no training 
school. The training school is built on a beauti- 
ful theory, that never works out in practice.” 

“Theories never work out in practice, dear 


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79 


lady. Are not all our lives based on a beautiful 
theory that never works out in practice? Are 
not the laws of the land based, on that theory — 
and the ten commandments — ^the theory that all 
souls were alike — and how do any of them work 
out in practice? What did the ten wise men 
know of sin when they made the laws — and the 
commandments were made before half the 
temptations had been invented. Your training 
school may be a tiny world of its own, because 
every human being lives in a world of his own. 
We only see the outside of the other fellow’s 
world, the inside belongs to him alone — ^no mat- 
ter how hard we try, we can never get into the 
other chap’s world. It has a God of its own, a 
Devil of its own, a set of sins of its own, and a 
set of laws of its own. What do we know of 
another’s Gods and Devils, and sins and laws? 
Why should I be judged by the same set of law 
as you, or you judged by my laws?” He shrugged 
his shoulders. “Bah, I did not come here to talk 
of theories, I came to tell you that I loved you.” 

She gave him a quiet little glance. “You 
were to give me some time to think about it.” 

“I think I have been patient. You have taken 
a long time, Joan. If you thought of it at all, 
you must have come to some decision.” 

“I have thought of it,” she said gently. 
“When a man tells me that he loves me, I think 
of it — most girls do, I think.” 

“A man!” He sprang to his feet, and the 
passion in his face almost frightened her. “Am 


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I just any man to you, to be thought of lightly 
at your leisure?” 

“No,” she said in a low tone that only caught 
his ear, “No, you are not just — any man to me.” 

In a moment he was kneeling at her feet, his 
arms around her, “Joan, you have given me the 
world,” he said in a hushed tone. 

“But,” she went on slowly, “don’t you know 
that I have no right to love — ^to have love in my 
life. I have been given another heritage that I 
must be true to.” 

“But I will help you, Joan, dear. I will do 
anything for you. I will be the best behaved 
surgeon on the staff. I will respect in every way 
your trust. Only say that you love me and will 
marry me.” 

“Again I must say to you, give me more 
time to think of this thing. Remember, I am 
all alone — I have no one to turn to for help or 
advice.” 

“But I will help you, dear. Don’t you know 
that I will?” he pleaded, but even as he spoke it 
came to her that here there was not much staple- 
ness to lean upon. All unconsciously she was 
comparing him to Lessing Jones, and yet her 
heart cried out for the right and freedom to love 
and give herself to the man before her, whom 
already she had grown to love with all her starved 
heart and soul, without weighing what would be 
right or best. A wild rebellion rose within her, 
while her caged spirit beat itself hopelessly 
against the barred door of her prison — Circum- 
stance. 


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81 


After a moment, he caught her hands in his 
drawing her to her feet. Standing thus he looked 
down at her, so sweet, so quiet, so firm, and the 
blood rushed to his head. Suddenly he caught 
her in his arms, pressing her to him in a surge 
of passion that turned his blood to liquid fire, cov- 
ering her face and throat with hot, mad kisses. 

She lay very still in his arms, and after a 
moment her very passiveness filtered through his 
consciousness, and he set her on her feet. She 
took a step back from him, that she might look 
upon his flushed face with her scorn-filled eyes, 
and drawing herself up, she pointed to the door. 

Then Lu Chang did the wisest thing he 
could have done, he bowed very humbly, with 
much grace, and walked with bowed head from 
the room. 


CHAPTER EIGHT. 

The Operation. 

Doctor Jones was doing a coIin resection in 
the surgery, and Doctor Gerry had a serious ac- 
cident case in the accident room. There was a 
certain amount of friction in the air, that even 
Joans efforts could not calm. Doctor Jones swore 
with unreasonable irritation that as sure as he 
had a serious case in the surgery, Gerry upset 
the whole routine of the hospital by bringing in 
an emergency that required every decent nurse 
and instrument in the house. This was, to say 
the least, unfair on the part of Doctor Jones, since 
the accident room was equipped with the same 
facilities for operating as the surgery, and an en- 
tirely different staff of nurses. Which went to 
show that Doctor Jones was not in the best of 
temper. 

It seemed to be in the atmosphere this morn- 
ing. Doctor Gerry fussed more than usual, which 
was not necessary. The nurses went about their 
work, and made more mistakes than usual, or 
so it seemed to Joan, who was also nervous. Doc- 
tor Chang did not improve matters, when he came 
to the surgery to assist Doctor Jones, by talking 
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83 


to Miss Norton in a corner, so that Doctor Jones 
was obliged to call to her twice before she came 
to tie his gown. Jones demanded that they both 
scrub up again as they had been leaning against 
the window as they gossiped. Doctor Chang pro- 
tested hotly that he had not been within three 
feet of the window, and would be damned if he 
scrubbed up again, and Miss Norton departed for 
the wash up room with resentment in every line 
of her trim figure, and tears of rage in her blue 
eyes. So by the time the patient was on the 
table the atmosphere of the operating room was 
somewhat charged. 

However, once the operation was under way, 
each forgot his grievance in the interest of the 
work, and Joan slipped out to view things in the 
accident room. She was detained there longer 
than she had intended, so that the operation was 
nearing its end when she came quietly into the 
surgery. 

“Sponge count !” Doctor Jones said crisply. 

“You have two tailed sponges, doctor, and 
three ‘sponges — six.’ 

“Here are your two tailed sponges — ^here is 
a ‘sponge-six,’ and there is another — that is all we 
have here,” Chang said tossing aside the sponges 
as he found them. “Better look around for the 
other one, nurse.” 

“Count your sponges again, nurse, are you 
sure we have three small ones? Be quick about 
it, too!” Jones said shortly. 

“I have only three from the last package. 


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and the two you threw out,” Miss Maxner an- 
swered nervously, as she and Miss Grey counted 
hastily over the strips of blood soaked gauze laid 
carefully in rows on a paper, that none might be 
missed, shaking out each with the long forceps. 

Jones inserted two long fingers into the ab- 
doman, through the open wound and searched. 
“The abdoman is clear,” he said in a low tone to 
Chang. 

“It isn’t inside, I could swear to it. It’s kick- 
ing about the floor somewhere. Sew up,” Chang 
answered. 

“I want to see that sponge. Don’t want an- 
other scrape like the one Thompson had last year 
— ^had to go in after it with both feet about a 
month after the wound had healed. Hurry up, 
what use is there in having a nurse on sponge 
count if she can’t be trusted?” 

“Here is the sponge. Doctor Jones.” Joan 
held it up on the end of a forcep. “It was under 
the paper. Miss Maxner,” she added in a low 
tone, “I should like to see you in my office for 
a few moments in an hour’s time. We must have 
a talk, I cannot understand your carelessness in 
a matter which has been so thoroughly impressed 
upon the understanding of the girls. It is the 
great trust of the surgery work, this sponge 
count, and if the doctors cannot trust the girls 
so much as that, as Doctor Jones just remarked, 
in what can they trust them. Weren’t you watch- 
ing every sponge?” 

“I thought so. Miss Murray.” 

“Surely you have learned that there is no 


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85 


‘thought so’ in the surgery. It must be either one 
thing or the other,” 

After the operation was over, the patient 
taken out, the surgeons and Joan gone, the three 
surgery nurses gathered together to talk things 
over. 

“You are in for it now. Max. When little 
Joan gets the look on her face, that she had when 
we were looking for that sponge, there’s things 
doing inside of her. She is exactly like the old 
man sometimes,” Norton said, swinging herself 
to a seat on the operating table, after carefully 
removing a wet sheet, and a rubber pillow to the 
floor, to sit looking down upon her classmate with 
a “thank God I am not in your shoes” expression 
on her pretty face, 

“I am afraid you are in for it, Max. How 
did you ever miss that sponge, anyway — and let 
it get under the paper out of sight. You know 
as well as I do what it means to lose a sponge 
in the surgery,” Miss Grey said. 

“Oh, I don’t know — the damn thing slipped 
out of my sight when I was thinking of some- 
thing else. If it had been inside, and they had 
sewed up, there would have been one holy row. 
Remember the time Smith let them sew one in- 
side last year — she’s drifting yet, or I should be — 
in her shoes. Then again if they had discovered 
it really in the abdoman, I should have been some 
little heroine, like Grey, but just because it was 
under the paper — ^wow — Jones has to get nasty. 
Gee, it is some little old world.” 

“That is the trouble. Max, you are supposed 


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to know whether they are inside or outside. 
Wasn’t Jones in one fiendish temper?” 

“Was he? Everything would not have been 
wrong if he had been like he usually is. Heavens, 
how does he expect us to keep our minds on any 
thing, when nothing on earth pleases him ?” 

“Do you know what is the matter with 
Jonsey? Murray is in love with our hero, Chang, 
and Jones is as sore as the mischief.” 

“How do you know, Nort?” 

“How do I know — ^keep your eyes and your 
ears open. Max, if you would use the sense God 
gave you, and not go mooning about half asleep, 
you would see for yourself, and perhaps not lose 
sponges and things.” 

“You needn’t be so damn nasty about it, just 
because I don’t go nosing about into things that 
do not concern me, like some people I know.” 

“Girls, stop quarreling, you sound like a pair 
of sailors, with your swearing and slang. It is 
eleven o’clock, and Cory gave me this afternoon 
off, so help me clean up.” 

Norton came down off the table and began 
gathering up towels and instruments. “Come on. 
Max, wake up and get busy. Our friend here, 
who objects to slang and swearing in her surgery, 
wants to get off duty. Have you joined the 
nurses’ anti-swearing league. Grey, or are you 
merely qualifying for the job of head nurse when 
Corey gets married? The symptoms point that 
way.” 

Mary Davis put her head in at the door, and 
called to Miss Maxner, and the girls went about 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


87 


their work swiftly. Norton was swift and bright, 
beneath her light fingers, work had an amazing 
way of getting done. As she worked she talked. 
“I wonder when that long prob will get her cap? 
She has been here nearly six months now.” 

“Unless Miss Murray is short of nurses, she 
will never get it. She is about the slowest thing 
I ever saw.” 

“She is slow, but she may turn out sure. I 
can’t make her out myself, but then I never had 
her under me to train.” 

“God pity her if you ever do start to train 
her! But you might endow her with a little of 
your quickness, Nort.” 

“I wonder what on earth ails Max, Grey. She 
used to be the quickest thing, now she seems half 
alive. Is she in love ?” 

“No, she is taking too much dope. Takes 
morphia to steady her nerves since she has been 
in the surgery.” 

“No — is that true, Grey. How do you know?” 

“I am not blind. She has been working with 
me in the surgery long enough for me to know. 
She uses considerable atropin, so it is hard to 
notice the morphia if you are not watching. I 
meant to speak to her about it, but I guess it 
isn’t up to me.” 

“Don’t you worry. Now that Murray has 
found her in a mistake she will ferret the thing 
out. When Murray starts nosing around you leave 
it to her to find out all that is going.” 

The door opened and Joan Murray came into 
the surgery. “Miss Grey, I have transferred Miss 


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Maxner to the ward for a time. Miss Henry, who 
has lately come off night duty, will take her place 
in the surgery. It is time she began her training 
in the surgery.” 

“Very well. Miss Murray.” 

In the corridor outside Joan met Lessing 
Jones, and he joined her. “I am afraid that I 
rather lost my temper this morning in the sur- 
gery,” he said looking down at her. 

“I am rather afraid you did. Doctor Jones. 
You made my nurses nervous, therefore you got 
bad service. In fact, you upset the whole rou- 
tine.” 

“But, good Lord, Joan, I am not a saint. I 
scarcely ever lose my temper. Look the way (God- 
win raves, and Doctor Tompson swears, and Gerry 
fusses.” 

“They are used to that, but not to you being 
out of temper. When the nerves get to the pitch 
that they do in the surgery, anything out of the 
ordinary upsets them.” 

“The reward of virtue scarcely seems what 
one would expect. I dare say you never asked 
Godwin to keep his temper, yet the first time I 
lose mine I am called on the carpet.” Jones spoke 
lightly, but Joan fancied there was a hurt note 
in his voice. “Don’t scold, Joan, I won’t do it 
again.” 

“Very well, only please do not call me Joan 
before the nurses. They are inclined to call me 
that any way without any encouragement from 
the staff.” 

“Rather hard on the staff, considering they 


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have known you since you were a kid, and you 
have not grown up far yet,” Jones said smiling. 

“I do not feel like a child. Doctor Jones,” she 
said a little wearily. “It seems hard to remem- 
ber that I ever was a child.” 

“Poor little girl,” he said gently. “Your 
nerves are wearing out under the strain. Your 
father left you too heavy a load.” 

“If some of you would help, it would not 
be so bad.” 

“That is rather too bad of you, Joan. Do I 
not try to help all I can. Would not I take all the 
burden from you if I could ?” he said gravely. 

“I know. Less,” she said contritely. Yes, 
she knew all that his great tender heart would 
do for her, and a little pain grew up within her, 
as she remembered that now she could never 
answer his love as he wished, for all unmeaningly 
she had given her thoughts and love to another, 
less worthy in every way. 


CHAPTER NINE. 


The Path of Good Resolutions. 

Mary Davis was coming down the corridor 
with an armful of linen for the ward. She had 
been given her cap at last, and she felt now that 
she was a part of the Hospital. No longer did the 
patients look askance at her when she waited 
upon them. No longer did the doctors look 
through her and say, “Go send me a nurse.” 

She was thinking of this as she walked along, 
and perhaps that was why she failed to see that 
the maid who had been washing the tiles in the 
corridor, had left her scrubbing pail in the middle 
of the floor and gone elsewhere. The linen she car- 
ried was heavy, and when her toe struck the 
pail, Mary came very suddenly to grief. From 
the Xray room door. Doctor Chang viewed the 
accident with much amusement, but his face was 
grave enough when he came to her assistance, 
and helped her to her feet. 

She stood looking down at the linen, an 
island of white in a lake of soapy suds. Her 
nice fresh apron was wet and soiled, her cap a 
little awry, and her lips quivered like those of a 
hurt child. In spite of her tall slimness she looked 
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91 


SO like a child ready to cry that all desire to 
laugh died in Chang’s heart, and he became in- 
terested. “Never mind,” he said gently. “We 
can rescue the best part of it, and pitch the re- 
mainder down the surgery soiled clothes shute 
here, and no one will ever be the wiser, then 
you can lean up against the radiator in the Xray 
room and dry off. If we get caught I will tell 
them I upset the water — the maid should be shot 
anyway, for leaving her cleaning apparatus 
there — it’s no place for it.” 

They gathered up the linen gayly and dis- 
appeared into the Xray room. The accident had 
taken on the form of a rather enjoyable episode 
in Mary’s dull existence, and she was nothing 
lothe to spending a few minutes in the company 
of this fascinating officer, with whom half of 
the girls in the school were in love, when there 
was very little danger of getting caught. 

Doctor Chang came to the conclusion that 
this tall, slim nurse that he had never noticed 
before was a pretty girl. Things had been a 
little dull for him of late. The house had been 
crowded and Joan so busy that he scarcely ever 
saw her alone. He had not done any flirting 
since he had met her — ^but now, something about 
this girl before him, with her sweet childish and 
innocent smile caught his wavering fancy. He 
lit a cigarette, and looked down at her with his, 
“You are the only girl in the world” smile. 

“I am rather glad you fell down,” he said. 

She looked down, and it struck him that she 
must be rather young, and when she did not 


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answer he went on, “Are you very sorry, little 
girl?” 

She shook her head smiling. She had often 
watched Chang talking to the other girls with a 
feeling of envy, and she had heard the nurses 
at the junior tables talking of him, and of what 
he had done. He had been more or less a figure 
of romance to dream about. She had never hoped 
he would notice her. 

He came over and put his hand on her 
shoulder lightly, and she thrilled at his touch, 
moving a little uneasily under it. 

“You must be one of the younger nurses,” 
he asked after a moment. “I do not remember 
seeing you around before.” 

“I just got into uniform,” she told him shyly. 
“No one ever notices a probationer, I guess.” 

He laughed, “I think I should have noticed, 
if I had seen you,” he told her, noting the flush 
that came and went on her fair face. She was 
surely very young and fresh, he thought, but 
rather sweet withal. As a rule, callow youth 
bored him to distraction, but just now he was 
slightly bored with life anyway. 

“Now that I have discovered you,” he went 
on gayly, “I do not intend to let you forget me. 
I think we should be very good friends, don’t 
you?” 

She might have told him that there was very 
little fear of her forgetting him, but she only 
looked at him, half glad, half afraid. “I do not 
know. Doctor* Chang. It is against the rules for 
doctors and nurses to be friends.” 


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“But I am not a staff doctor, my dear, there- 
fore that rule does not apply to me. However we 
can manage a friendship anyhow, without getting 
you into serious trouble.” 

She digested these facts silently, then sud- 
denly she bethought of the errand upon which she 
had been sent. “I must go now,” she said regret- 
fully. “It won’t be good for me if I get caught, 
besides they are waiting in the ward for the linen, 
and the ward nurse. Miss Maxner, is so cranky. 
She says I am awfully slow anyway.” 

“Then she will not expect you back very soon 
— ^tell her I wanted you to tie up my finger. See, 
I cut it.” He showed her a tiny scratch some 
hours old upon his finger. “Will you be so kind 
as to bandage it for me, nurse? There is a roll 
of finger bandage over there on the shelf. Have 
you learned to bandage yet?” 

She shook her head. “No, Doctor Chang, I 
never learned, only what my father taught me, 
but I will try.” She bent with grave concern 
over his hand. “Do you want a sterile dressing?” 

He laughed. “On that? No child — ^here you 
are starting wrong — let me show you.” 

They spent another five minutes over the 
bandage, conversing gayly or going into smoth- 
ered fits of laughter over it. Once he kissed her 
fingers while pretending to examine her work, 
and more than once did the bandage tangle their 
two hands together. 

“I will certainly have to give you a lesson 


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on bandaging,” he said. “I’m afraid the Hospital 
is rather backward in its lessons.” 

And she answered happily that she hoped 
that he would not forget to do so. 

“I’ll tell you what we will do — one of these 
nice nights we will go for a spin in my car,” he 
said, as she picked up her linen reluctantly to go. 

Her face brightened, then fell. “I do not 
know whether I would dare. They are so strict 
here.” 

“Whose going to know? Do you think I 
have been around hospitals all these years without 
knowing how to get around rules? You get your 
evening off, and I will manage the rest.” 

Before she had time to answer. Miss Peters 
appeared in the doorway. “For the Lord’s sake, 
Davis, where have you been ? What are you doing 
here?” Coming into the darkened room out of 
the sunlit corridor she had failed to see Chang 
at first. 

“Miss Davis was helping me, nurse — sorry 
I kept her so long, but she may go now,” Chang 
said gravely, while Mary Davis lifted her linen 
and followed Peters from the room. 

“What on earth did Chang want?” Peters 
asked when they were out of earshit. 

Mary flushed under the other’s keen glance. 
“He wanted his finger bound up; he had cut It 
somehow,” she said. 

“Then why didn’t he go to the accident room, 
that is the place for cuts. You can’t bandage, 
can you?” 


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95 


“No, only what my father showed me, but 
Doctor Chang showed me how he wanted it done. 
I think there is a case in the accident room." 

“Wasn’t when I came by. Well, Maxner will 
eat you — she has been waiting for the linen for 
most an hour — one would think it a week to hear 
her — Lordy, Jane, what are you trying to do, 
flood the corridor? This to the grumbling maid 
who was cleaning up the mess Mary and Chang 
had left in their wake. “She sent me down to 
look for you. I wish Miss Murray would put 
me back in the ward — I hate that pokey old hole 
of eleven.” 

“I guess you should be glad not to be in the 
ward. We have an awful crowd, and Miss Max- 
ner is so cranky — ^half the time we do not get 
any off duty,” Mary said resentfully, she would 
have been glad to change places with Peters. 

“Cats! Who cares for a little work? I like 
to be where there is a little excitement some- 
times. Only one I ever see is Miss Murray since 
Godwin has gone away. Sometimes Doctor Jones 
looks in, but not often. But it was good to see 
old Godwin move. Thinks the nurses should 
work all the time — he is responsible for half the 
old rules — damn him,” she laughed a careless 
laugh. “If he should hear me swearing about 
him, he would have me suspended. He thinks 
nurses should not be allowed to swear.” 

“I wonder why it is that most of the nurses 
swear? I used to think when I first came that I 
would never say the things that I heard some of 


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the girls say, no matter what happened, but one 
very soon acquires the habit.” 

“They all think that at first, I guess — at 
least I did — and now I am the worst in the school, 
unless it is Norton. I think it is because there 
is so much to swear about.” 

“Would Doctor Godwin suspend a nurse for 
swearing, do you think?” 

“Would he? Don’t try him — ^he was the doc- 
tor who had three nurses suspended two years 
ago for swearing about him.” 

“Did he hear them?” 

“No, they wrote what they thought about 
him — and the Hospital, on one of the paper boards 
we use to make “sponges twelve on,” and it sure 
did make good reading until he found it one day, 
and showed it to Doctor Murray — ^he was living 
then. Some fool nurse had been making sponges 
in the ward, and left it downstairs. Murray 
called a staff meeting and suspended the girls — 
all of them.” 

“What a thing to do — ^write on a sponge 
board.” 

“It was a kid’s trick, now you think of it, 
but it was a habit in those days — it has not been 
one since, however. The girls burned all the 
boards with anything written on them, they knew 
Murray would look them all over.” 

“How did he find out who did it?” 

“Leave it to old Murray. He got the writing 
of every one in the school and compared it, then 
he put it up to them all. The girl who denied 


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it got the worst of all. You may be glad you 
were not training in his day — I was here three 
months before he died — no one dared draw a long 
breath on duty — even poor Miss Murray. She 
was more afraid of him than anyone. Here, take 
this linen, there is the elevator and I must get up- 
stairs before Miss Murray catches me and in- 
quires into the matter. I can’t very well explain 
that I was just down on a visit,” and pushing 
the linen she carried into Mary Davis’ hands, she 
ran off towards the elevator. 


CHAPTER TEN. 

A Talk on Drugs. 

It was one of those nights when a settled 
quiet seemed to be over all things. There were 
no telephone calls, no rings of the ambulance bell. 
Above the turmoil of the city the little world of 
the hospital was at rest. 

Joan Murray sat in her office and sitting 
room reading — not the latest thing in surgery, but 
a book of fiction by a popular author. She had 
picked it up because it was a story of hospital 
life, and she was curious to get the author’s view. 
After a time, however, she laid the book down 
with a sigh, the story was clever and humorous, 
the characters true to life, and the author’s ideas 
of hospital life were not wholly drawn from 
imagination, she must have at least seen some of 
the things she pictured, yet the vital point — the 
rear inner knowledge of the life was missing. She 
had seen but never lived in that strange little 
world that had gone to make up Joan Murray’s 
whole existence — the world where ideals, theories 
and romance were stripped of all glamor, and left 
naked to the pitiless light of the day. 

She picked up another book presently from 
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99 


the table beside her, this time it was a book on 
drugs, her favorite study, and she read for some 
time before the book slipped from her hand to 
her knee, and she sat with her head resting wear- 
ily against the back of her chair thinking. The 
subject had brought to her mind one of the prob- 
lems with which she had been brought face to 
face in the training school. Some of the girls had 
been tempted into the use of drugs that daily 
came under their hands. There seemed very lit- 
tle that one could do to stop it — the rules forbade 
the use of drugs without permission from one of 
the staff doctors — ^but they were there and the 
rules did not prevent the use of them. She re- 
membered once her father had caught a nurse 
frequenting the closet in which were kept the 
alcoholic liquers. One day the girl had taken too 
much and Doctor Murray had noticed it. Joan 
smiled a crooked little smile at the recollection. 
It had been tragically funny — ^then she shivered 
a little as she remembered her father’s hard- 
ness, his biting sarcasm. He had discharged the 
nurse — had he been right, Joan wondered — he had 
produced some wonderful nurses, the hospital 
was noted the country over for its training school, 
yet one had to be of iron to stand it, for with piti- 
less hand he had weeded out the weak and driven 
the strong. 

After a time she got up with a look of reso- 
lution on her face. She at least was free to try 
her own methods on those who were not among 
the strong. 

Looking at her watch she saw that it was 


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nearing ten o’clock, but she went out and over to 
the Nurses’ Home, for once she had made up her 
mind to do a thing, Joan Murray was not one to 
procrastinate because a duty was not a pleasant 
one. 

In the hall she passed two nurses hurrying 
to their rooms, and as she went by they turned 
to watch her down the corridor to the room of the 
girl she sought. 

She tapped lightly on the door, for a light 
shone out through the transome, and at a low 
“Come in’’ from within she entered the room. The 
girl on the bed got up with a start at sight of her, 
but Joan waved her back, and came over to sit 
down beside her. 

“Do not get up. Miss Maxner, you are not on 
duty now, you know. I have only come in to have 
a little talk with you, if you do not mind my com- 
ing at so late an hour,” Joan said gently. 

“I like to have you. Miss Murray,” the girl 
said brightly. “Only I know it must be something 
rather important to bring you to my room at this 
hour.” 

“It is. Miss Maxner, important in a way. It 
could have waited very well until tomorrow, how- 
ever. I came at this hour because I knew that we 
would not be disturbed. I do not wish you to 
take what I say tonight as a lecture, for I am only 
talking to you as one girl to another. Do you 
remember the other day you and I were speaking 
of drugs? I did not have the time to say to you 
then what I wished on the subject, so I will try 
to talk it over now. I know that in spite of the 


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rules you girls sometimes resort to drugs with- 
out permission. 

“Sometimes I think the rules must seem very 
senseless to you. If you do not know, or take time 
to think why they are made, they must indeed. 
For instance, it seems foolish that you cannot 
take a five grain tablet of phenacetine for a head- 
ache without going to the staff doctors, yet phe- 
nacetine if taken in any quantity is injurious to 
the heart action and one’s heart may be weak, 
yet not noticeably so. With other drugs it is the 
same, each has its effects on the human body, 
and one must be careful only to take those that 
are helpful.” 

“Do you think that I take drugs. Miss Mur- 
ray. It is not fair for you to judge us all by one 
or two.” 

“I try not to judge. Miss Maxner. I try al- 
ways to be sure. That is why I have come to 
you tonight. If you tell me that you do not take 
any drug to excess, I will believe you and be sat- 
isfied. I wonder if you will realize that it is not 
because of the rules that I have come to you, but 
because I try to be your friend.” 

“I wonder sometimes if you are a friend to 
the girls. Miss Murray. You are in a hard posi- 
tion to judge us, are you not?” 

“Perhaps I am,” Joan said patiently, “but 
you must remember that I, too, had to go through 
the training school to be able to take the posi- 
tion that I am in now. It was a harder training 
to me than it is to you girls, for my father was 


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a hard man — more hard with the nurses than I 
could ever be.” 

The girl looked at her thoughtfully for a 
moment, then she said quietly, “I do take morphia 
and atropin, but if I do my work right, and do 
not harm anyone else, why should I not do so ?” 

“You have voiced a question that has puzzled 
mankind throughout the ages. Miss Maxner. “Am 
I my brother’s keeper?” If we do no harm to other 
than ourselves, whose business is it? My dear, 
I cannot answer you, the thing that has puzzled 
wiser heads than mine, I can only tell you what 
I think. We never deliberately injure ourselves 
in this world, but what we in some way injure 
others. You said you took morphia and atropin 
— then you have not touched cocaine?” 

“No, never.” 

“I am glad of that. I do not know whether 
you are familiar with these things or not, but 
cocaine is one of the drugs that we fear more than 
any other, for the reason that it lowers one’s 
morals. It is harder to bring a cocaine user back 
to normal for its degrading influence lasts even 
after all longing for the drugs has ceased. On 
the contrary morphia raises one’s morals, it raises 
them to a plane above the natural one, giving 
them ambitions to achieve greater things, per- 
haps it is more dangerous in a way on that ac- 
count, for it forms a greater temptation to those 
who know its powers, and even to those who know 
its dangers. Why did you start taking morphia. 
Miss Maxner?” 

“Things began to get on my nerves in the 


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surgery. I found that I could do my work better 
when I took it — it served as a tonic.” 

“I am sorry that you did not come to me 
when things got on your nerves, I should have 
seen that you got a rest at once. If you girls 
would only realize that the training school is not 
a slave market, where one must work until she 
drops. I know you have to work harder in a hos- 
pital than anywhere else, and that you have to 
have more moral and physical strength, but don’t 
you see that to drive the girls to a nervous break- 
down is as bad for the school as for the girls? 
If you would only come to me when you get tired 
and nervous instead of turning to drugs how much 
better it would be.” 

“But we find it easier to turn to drugs. Miss 
Murray. We do not want to stop work, when a 
dose of something will make us feel all right 
again.” 

“That is just it — you go to the drugs, think- 
ing that they are your friends. My dear, drugs 
are very like the old money-lender — they are your 
friend only so long as you are stronger than they 
are. They are very wonderful things so long as 
one is their master, but they are stranger than you 
or I. No matter how much they give us of bril- 
liance and strength, they always demand their 
interest — their pound of flesh. They take from 
you your sense of independence, and you are like 
a child who always needs a guiding hand.” 

“I do not think that I have become a slave 
to morphia yet. Miss Murray. I have never taken 
more than a half grain in twenty-four hours, and 


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then it was always with atropin. I am sure if I 
had a rest I should soon stop using it.” Joan Mur- 
ray saw the girl’s lips trembling, and a little pain 
came into her heart, after all did the girls think 
her hard ? 

“I am sure you can stop it if you try, my 
dear,” she said gently. 

“I am glad you think so. Miss Murray. Peo- 
ple are so apt to condemn anyone at once, when 
they know that they have been using a drug. They 
put them all in the same catagory and cease to 
trust them in any way.” 

“And that is where people make a mistake, 
my dear. I have known doctors to make the same 
mistake, they try their own methods upon the 
patient, refusing to listen to anything that he 
may have to say on the subject, and therefore 
cause untold suffering to the case. But tell me. 
Miss Maxner, when you found the work too hard 
why did you not give up your training?” 

The girl shook her head. “There is some- 
thing about hospital life that gets us all. Once 
we get into it we can never go back — either we 
come out finished or unfinished products. We 
all come in with hope, but soon we get so tired 
mentally and physically, that we go about our 
work just to get through and get our diploma. We 
don’t like it any more, but we can’t get away from 
it.” 

“Why did you take up the work. Miss Max- 
ner?” 

“I had to earn my living some way, and it 
struck me that a nurse had a pretty good chance 


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105 


compared with others. It was not for any love 
of humanity, but I was willing to do my work well 
— the best that I could, but the hospital got me, 
too. Your hospital or any other — unless perhaps 
the ones run by the Sisters — they all deceive those 
who do not know the inner life. It all looks so 
calm and peaceful from the outside, that you won- 
der why graduates tell you to keep away from it. 
Then you get inside and you find that the Heav- 
enly qualities are all on the surface, and that you 
have gotten yourself into a little Hell. I don’t 
know why we stick to it, but we do.” 

Joan sat silent a moment. Her heart was 
full, for she realized only too well that the girl 
had spoken the truth. What she could not un- 
derstand was, why they stayed. She knew what 
she would do if she had a chance to leave — but 
again did she ? — ^would she find after all, like these 
other girls, that the hold of the life was too strong 
to break away from ? Was there no freedom after 
all? 

“If you had a good chance at another kind of 
work, would you not forget the training and get 
on well ?” she asked after a time, gently. 

The girl smiled a little and shook her head. 
“It might hold me for a time, but eventually I 
would work back to it. I have been in it too long, 
and the hold of the school is too strong — it is 
something we cannot break away from, something 
that unfits us for any other kind of work, per- 
haps we know and see too much. Even the girls 
who get themselves discharged or expelled, either 
take up the work in some other place, and fit 


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themselves for some branch or they sink to in- 
describable depths.” 

Joan sighed, “You girls fail to realize that 
to be a superintendent, one must go through the 
same as you are going through. Is it because you 
are undergraduates that you feel like this?” 

“Perhaps it is. After the girls graduate 
things are different. They are independent and 
free to do as they like. They forget by and by 
the hardness of the training — but it takes time. 
They see outside life again and mix with the 
world. They are no longer behind the prison bars 
of rules as we are.” 

“Well, my dear, to get back to the question 
of drugs, you would like to stop taking morphia 
now, would you not, before it gets a hold on you ?” 

“Yes, Miss Murray, in fact I was going to 
stop while on my vacation.” 

“Then you must have your vacation at once. 
Let me see — how would it do to take a trip out 
into the country, and have a thorough rest. I 
know just such a place — a patient we had here 
at one time, a Mrs. Ward. She would be delighted 
to have you for a visit, she often asks me to send 
my tired nurses to her. She is really a tonic in 
herself. She has a beautiful old home and will 
give you a delightful time, I know.” 

“Do you want me to go to this place, and stop 
using the drug at once. Miss Murray?” 

“No. My dear child after using morphia and 
atropin for a length of time that you have been 
doing, you cannot stop at once. To do so, un- 
less your heart is in the best of condition, which 


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107 


I doubt after the drug, might prove fatal. Take 
with you enough of the drug for your needs, and 
start taking a little less every dose, going as long 
as possible between doses. I will give you a pow- 
erful tonic, to take also, and you will find your 
need of the drug diminishing very quickly. I 
think you will be quite ready for work again some 
time before Christmas.” 

The girl on the bed suddenly burst into tears. 
“Oh, Miss Murray, how good you can be — indeed 
I will try to please you.” 

Joan bent over her and took her hand. “I 
am sure you will, and if at any time you feel like 
failing just write and tell me about it. I will help 
you all I can.” She got up and stood looking 
down and the girl on the bed sprang up and held 
out her hand. 

“Miss Murray, I will not forget your kind- 
ness, and I shall try to be worthy of it.” 

“Indeed I am sure you will. You need not 
go on duty tomorrow. I will put someone in the 
ward in your place, and you can come in to see me 
in the morning to arrange about your trip.” She 
gave the girl’s hand a firm clasp and went out. 


CHAPTER ELVER 


Midnight Revelry. 

Joan went down the corridor very softly, so 
as not to disturb the sleeping nurses. She had 
stayed longer than she knew in the room with 
Miss Maxner, and it was almost one o’clock as 
she made her way through the Home. 

Passing one of the rooms, she noticed a 
light shining under the door, and she glanced up 
to see why it was not shining through the tran- 
som. It was only too evident that the latter had 
been covered with something dark to prevent the 
light from showing, for only a tiny glow was 
visible from one end. Joan paused, puckering her 
straight brows in thought, and as she did her 
quick ears caught the sound of a smothered laugh 
— a man’s laugh. She stood very still after that 
until the sound was repeated, and the murmur of 
voices came to her. 

Spying on the nurses was a thing that Joan 
disliked more than all else, but it seemed the 
present situation warranted som.ething of the 
sort, unless she wished to shut her eyes altogether 
to whatever indiscretions might be going on in 
the Home at this hour of the morning. Her 
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109 


eyes again on the glow of the light above, she 
wondered if there was an opening large enough 
to command a view of the room. 

After a moment’s thought, she pulled a hall 
chair silently against the door and climbed up, 
only to find that she was entirely too short. Half 
discouraged, she got down and removed the chair, 
at the same time looking for something else. Fin- 
ally her eyes lighted upon a tall hall stand, and 
she moved it slowly and silently to the door. It 
came to her mind that she would be in some- 
what of a ridiculous position should any of the 
nurses come out of their rooms suddenly, and 
she looked half fearfully over her shoulder as 
she mounted her impromptu ladder. 

She found a small opening through which 
she could view the interior of the room to good 
advantage, and her gaze fell upon another prob- 
lem. Two of the nurses. Miss Henry, and Miss 
Norton, were in the room entertaining two of 
the staff surgeons. Miss Henry clad in elab- 
orate rose negligee, sat on the bed with the 
younger of the two men, while Miss Norton, still 
in her uniform, sat by a small table smoking, and 
talking to the other man, old Doctor Thompson, 
a man old enough to be her grandfather. Two 
half empty glasses, some empty bottles and the 
remains of a lunch completed the picture. They 
had evidently been having a very good time. 

As silently as she had climbed up, Joan 
climbed down, and going into the next room, 
which happened to be empty, she sat down by 


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the window and watched. It was something after 
four o’clock that her vigil was rewarded, and two 
surgeons climbed silently and carefully out of the 
next window and went softly across the lawns. 
A few minutes later Joan heard a car purring off 
into the morning. 

It was after ten the next morning when Doc- 
tor Jones came in to do dressings and make his 
morning calls, and when he had finished Joan 
asked him to come to her office. 

“What now, Joan ?’’ he asked as she sat down 
and pointed to a chair. 

“You had better sit down. Less, for I shall 
likely keep you for some time. I want some ad- 
vice about the nurses.” 

He laughed as he took the chair, “You will 
never take my advice, even if I do see fit to give 
it, but I will do my best.” 

“I think probably I will listen to you about 
this,” she said, and then she repeated what she 
had seen the previous night. 

Jones whistled. “Old Tompson should be 
shot. Why, the man must be over seventy.” 

“He is an old reprobate, and I always said 
so. He has been the ruination of this training 
school.” 

A quiver of amusement went over Jones’ 
face as he looked at her. He did not see anything 
particularly funny in the situation, but some times 
Joan’s righteous indignation at the staff amused 
him. “He has tried to make love to you, has he 
not Joan ?” 


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“Yes, and he made things unpleasant for me 
when I told him what I thought of him and his 
love making, and he does the same to all the girls. 
He makes love to them, and if they resent it, he 
makes things unpleasant for them throughout 
the training. I do not think it fair.” 

“I think the girls are a great deal to blame, 
Joan.” 

“Perhaps they are, but not so much as he. 
It is a man like him — and I guess every training 
school has one — ^that makes the training schools 
and hospitals what they are today.” 

“It strikes me if the nurses were not the kind, 
anyway — they would not have anything to do 
with him.” 

“Don’t you see, it is like this — ^the girls know 
that so long as he likes them they will get “by” 
with most anything, but if they make him an 
enemy he makes their training unpleasant. They 
hate him in their hearts, but they are afraid to 
offend him.” 

“I do not see that his friendship will do them 
any good in this. They let themselves get caught, 
and him along with them, so that is the end of it 
with him. I am sure he will not stand up for 
them now.” 

“That is the unfair part of it. When a thing 
like this happens instead of the guilty having to 
pay, they escape every time, and the innocent get 
the blame.” 

“If there is any innocence in that pretty lit- 
tle Norton girl, you will have to show it to me, 
Joan. What that girl does not know isn’t worth 


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talking about. However, this thing will have to 
go up before the staff. It is possible that the girls 
will have to go. It will be a small warning to 
others in the school who are going the same gait.” 

“Yes, put all the blame on the girls, and let 
Doctor Tompson go free, that is a man’s view of 
it every time. I might have known how things 
would be. I should very much like to ask Doctor 
Tompson to resign from the staff.” 

“You can’t do that, Joan. We had better 
leave his name out of it altogether when talking 
to the remainder of the staff. He will know that 
we know, and will be slightly uncomfortable over 
it, that is if the old begger has any conscience at 
all, which I very much doubt. Remember, Joan, 
he is a very big factor on the staff since your 
father has gone. His name on the diplomas is 
worth all the others put together.” 

“And must I stand men like him, just to have 
his name on a diploma? Am I to bring young 
girls here to be ruined by him, just so he will give 
his prestige to this hospital? Am I to encourage 
young surgeons to follow in his footsteps?” 

“But Joan, don’t you see it would be the same 
with these girls wherever they were. It would 
be some other man if it were not Doctor Tompson, 
some other place if it were not the training school. 
It is the girls themselves, not their surround- 
ings.” 

Joan shook her head wearily. “Don’t you see. 
Less, it is this hospital life. All human nature 
is bared of its veneer, and we see the worst of it. 


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113 


and we get to judging by that worst. We do not 
see any other kind of life so we think it all the 
same.” 

“Do you think that no matter what the girls 
are like, they all get the same after two or three 
years of training?” 

“I will not go so far as to say that, Less, but 
they all get something that breaks their ideals, 
it makes the strong ones hard, and the weak ones 
fall.” 

“Perhaps you are right, I do not know. This 
ter let us deal entirely with the matter.” 

“Very well. Less, I am afraid that it has gone 
beyond me. I find it hard to judge human souls, 
and mark out their way for them.” She sighed 
wearily and sat looking thoughtfully down at the 
school pin that she held in her hand. It was a 
small gold pin, emblem of faith and trust — a gold 
cross on a purple ground. An emblem of what 
the training school was meant to be, to be given 
to those who had won both trust and faith 
through four years of faithful service. It lay be- 
fore her, a little thing — so small that only those 
who had worked and striven for it, realized its 
value. It meant four years of one’s life given in 
training to help suffering humanity — that was 
the beautiful theory of the training school. Her 
lip curled a little as she thought of it. The faith 
and trust were but a farce as was the faithful 
service. 

She held out the pin to Lessing Jones. “Less, 
what does this pin mean to you?” she said. 


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He took it and examined it gravely. It was 
a small disk shaped pin, with a raised gold cross 
standing out against a purple ground, bearing the 
name of the hospital, and its motto, “Ich dien.” 
“Do you mean what the pin really stands for — 
or what it in itself means? We all know that it 
means the standard for which the girls work. 
Something to show that they have served so 
many years in the school without always carry- 
ing a diploma with them. But the pin itself — 
let me see — the colors — gold is for trust, is it 
not? Purple is for faith. The cross means a 
burden and the words mean ‘I serve.’ It cer- 
tainly represents in every way what the train- 
ing school stands for. It is like a banner on which 
is written, T serve in trust and in faith, I bear 
the burden of other lives.’ I never thought of it 
in that way before, but looking into it one finds 
just that.’’ 

“Yes, one finds just that, and yet how many 
of the girls who are training look at it so?’’ 

“Did you, Joan?’’ 

“No, I went through the training school be- 
cause my father made me. There was nothing 
else for me to do — you knew my father. Yet I 
did the work as well as I could. I kept rules be- 
cause I saw no particular need of breaking them. 
But you cannot compare my case with that of 
those who took up the work because they wanted 
to. Sometimes I blame the training school for 
the mess it makes of our lives, and what it does 
to human souls, then I wonder if all life is so. Are 
we all so miserably human that we cannot live 


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115 


up to an ideal? Surely life does not make us all 
faithless and untrustworthy, yet that is what the 
only life I know does to us. It takes us in its 
iron grip, and it breaks our ideals, and smashes 
our idols, kills our dreams, and crushes out our 
trust and faith.” 

Lessing Jones gave her a keen glance. “Are 
your ideals all gone, Joan?” 

“Most of them. How can I keep them, when 
every day brings me face to face with the very 
uselessness of them? Everywhere I look I see 
some evidence of faithlessness, and unworthiness. 
When it comes to that I am no better than the 
rest of them — I have to keep up appearances, 
that is all.” She looked up into his face, and then 
she laughed suddenly. “Poor Less, you look ab- 
solutely shocked.” 

“No,” he said gently, “I know you too well 
to be shocked at you.” With a little smile he rose. 
“I will look after the matter of the girls at once, 
Joan, and will talk it over later with you.” 

“Very well, thank you. Less, but remember 
when you are talking to the staff, you are dis- 
cussing the two very best nurses in this school. 
Miss Norton is without doubt the cleverest nurse 
we have ever had.” 

“I am afraid that will not help matters, 
Joan,” Jones said with a sigh as he went out. 


CHAPTER TWELVE. 


A Ride. 

It was just dusk as Doctor Chang drove down 
the street toward the city, so dusk that at first 
his eyes did not distinguish the tall slim figure 
swinging along at a rapid pace. When he finally 
recognized her, he was nearly past, and Mary 
Davis had looked up with a shy little smile and 
nod as he went by. He drew up to the curb and 
opened the door of his runabout. “Get in, you are 
an angel from Heaven, sent tonight to cheer my 
lonely path.” 

She stopped and looked at him uncertainly. 
“I do not know whether I dare to go or not,” she 
said slowly. 

“Nonsense, no one will ever be the wiser. 
Leave it to me. We will take a run out into the 
country, and be back by ten o’clock. That is the 
time you have to be in, isn’t it ?” 

Mary looked hastily around. There was no 
one in sight on the street, and it was almost dark, 
why should she not go if she wanted to, and there 
was no doubt about that part of it. She looked 
once more into the gleaming eyes above, and was 
lost. A moment later she had climbed in beside 
116 


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117 


Chang, and they were speeding away from the 
city lights. 

In a kind of daze she watched the lamp posts 
glide by, on the familiar way, until they came to 
the quiet of the country road, and there were no 
more lights, only stars that came peeping out one 
by one, and twinkled down on them. After a time 
the car slowed down, and they drove through a 
tree lined lane. Vaguely alarmed, yet thrilling 
with the excitement, her first attempt at break- 
ing rules — ^her first ride with a staff doctor — 
this particular doctor, whom half the girls were in 
love with. Before she realized it the car had 
come to a stop, and Chang had slipped an arm 
around her. 

“Dear little girl, you must be cold in that thin 
coat?” 

She shook her head. “No, I am not cold.” She 
looke dup at him shyly, “Wouldn’t it be better to 
drive on — someone might come along and see us.” 

“No danger of that. I want to get acquainted 
with you, and I can’t talk and drive the car too. 
I never see you around the hospital now — what 
have they done to you?” 

“Miss Murray put me in the diet kitchen last 
week. I was so afraid she would put me on night- 
duty, but one of the girls was caught gossiping 
and she was put on night duty for punishment, so 
I escaped for a while. I don’t see much of the 
other part of the hospital now, but it is better 
than the ward. Miss Baker, the dietition — 


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“Quig,” the girls call her — is cranky, but not as 
bad as the nurses.” 

“And so you could not get a chance to tell 
me about your evening off. Well we will have to 
arrange some method of communication. Do you 
suppose if I went to the kitchen, Miss ‘Quig’ would 
allow you to give me some lunch ?” 

“I am afraid she would get you the lunch 
herself,” Mary said gayly. 

She had begun to puzzle Chang. Her inno- 
cence might be sophistication, it bordered so near 
the danger line. She was either very wise or 
very foolish, he found it hard to determine which, 
for Chang was not used to innocence — he had 
seen something often enough, however, that had 
worn its cloak. 

It was evident that she did not resent the 
fact that he had his arm around her. She ac- 
cepted, even seemed to look for his attentions. 
It never occurred to Chang, be this to his credit, 
that the girl was falling in love with him. Chang 
ever fell for a pretty face, it was his nature. 
He often had fits of remorse over the wrong he 
had wrought, but he never thought of it at the 
time. It did not occur to him that women natural- 
13^ fell in love with his handsome face and winning 
manner. If a woman accepted his attentions he 
went as far as she permitted him. If she repulsed 
him, he turned to another for amusement. This 
was no exception to the case, and as always, he 
went as far as he might. 


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119 


“Do you like being out with me?” he asked 
after a moment. 

“Yes,” she said, “I have been so lonely since 
I came here. I do not make many friends among 
the girls.” 

He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the 
lips, and was amused to see the red run over her 
fair face in the dim light. “Do you like being 
kissed?” 

“I don’t know,” she said naively. “No one 
has ever kissed me before — no man, I mean.” 

“What? You do not mean to tell me that 
no man has ever kissed you before?” It came to 
Chang then, that the wisest course he could pur- 
sue at that moment was to turn his car and head 
back for the hospital. Innocence was all very 
well, but not out riding with Lu Chang. But he 
did not yield to the impulse, although it would 
have been better for them both in the end, per- 
haps, if he had. “How old are you, girl?” 

“Twenty-three.” 

“Twenty-three? Good Lord, girl, you do not 
look it, nor act it. Where have you been all your 
life?” 

“My home is up state, in the country. My 
father is a country doctor.” Her eyes misted over 
for a moment at the thought of the one she loved. 
What would he think of her now? Would he be 
glad or sorry that she was out riding with Chang? 

“A country doctor, eh?” In Chang’s mind 
rose up a picture of a kindly, overworked, under- 
paid country doctor, an angel in disguise among 


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his people, to whom he was both friend and savior, 
and a grim smile twisted his mouth, as he com- 
pared them in his mind. “You will find some dif- 
ference between him, and we devils of city doc- 
tors. I daresay he is goodness personified.” 

“Father is good — too good, I think — he doc- 
tors every one in the country around, sometimes 
even their horses and dogs, and he is always the 
one they come to in trouble. More often a patient 
is a man or woman in trouble than a sick person. 
But I have not found the city doctors devils. They 
all seem very nice, excepting Doctor Godwin, who 
is an old crank. He has gone away now, thank 
goodness.” 

“So Godwin is a crank? Don’t you know that 
he is one of our wonderful exceptions, a moral 
doctor?” 

“That does not make him any nicer, it seems. 
He is awful to work for. Once he sent me for 
something, and it was sometime before I could 
find it. When I came back he was saying, ‘Where 
is that blockhead of a nurse?’ I said, ‘Here is 
what you want, doctor.’ and he just snatched it 
from me and said, ‘Where the devil have you 
been. Do you think I have time to stand around 
here all day waiting?’ 

Chang laughed. “It strikes me that virtue 
must be its own reward, as you girls do not seem 
to appreciate it at all.” 

“Virtue takes on some strange forms some- 
times, Doctor Chang. I would not want all the 
doctors to be good, if Doctor Godwin is a sample. 


THE LITTLE WOELD 


121 


I’m sure I pity poor Mrs. Godwin. She must be 
glad he has gone away.” 

“Perhaps Mrs. Godwin does not feel the same 
about him as you do, my dear.” 

“I think she must. If she had been very 
much in love with him, she would not have been 
out riding on the River Road with another man, 
the night of her accident, would she ?” 

“What?” Chang spoke so sharply that Mary 
looked up, startled. “Don’t you know it is not wise 
to discuss a patient in that tone of voice, young 
woman ?” 

“I am sorry, doctor, it just slipped out; every 
one knows it.” 

“Don’t the rules forbid you talking about a 
patient? If they do not, they should. Have you 
girls no thought for ^he patient?” 

“We do, I suppose, get to discussing things 
that are none of our business — perhaps because 
there is so little else to amuse us in hospital life. 
We all come in with big ideas, but we soon find 
that the ones who try the hardest to do right are 
not always the ones who get by the easiest. We 
find that we do not gain anything by being so 
good.” 

“I was of the opinion that one was not good 
for what they got out of it, but for the peace of 
their conscience.” 

She smiled. “I had those ideas when I first 
came here, but they have changed,” 

He looked at her quizically. “How long have 
you been here?” 


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“Six months.” 

“Well you seem to have had quite an evolu- 
tion in that time. Perhaps in another six months 
you will have traveled around to normal again.” 

“I am afraid I will never do that — perhaps I 
do not want to — I do not know — there is some- 
thing we learn here that we can never forget — 
I do not suppose that we would go back if we 
could.” 

“Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be 
wise,” he quoted lightly. “My dear, you are just 
learning that though we are happier in our ig- 
norance, we will never part with an atom of 
knowledge that we have gained. Perhaps because 
we have paid so high a price for it. Youth is very 
sweet, but what a lot we would miss if we never 
grew old.” 

She laughed a little bubbling laugh. “You 
speak as though you knew what it meant to be 
very, very old.” 

“We do not always measure age by years, 
little one. However, I brought you out here to 
get acquainted. We are progressing very rapidly 
on one point, but I do not think it is going to get 
us anywhere. I do not want to know what you 
think of life, I want to know what you think of 
love.” 

“But I do not know anything about love. Doc- 
tor Chang, truly I don’t.” 

“Do you mean to tell me that you are twenty- 
three years old, and have never been in love. 
Surely someone has been in love with you?” 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


123 


“If they have, they never said anything about 
it to me,” she told him candidly. 

He laughed, she was certainly refreshing. 
“They say that a woman always knows when a 
man is in love with her. Is it not so?” 

“I do not know,” said Mary doubtfully, “I 
never saw any one, that I should have said looked 
as though they were in love with me,” she sighed. 
“I do not suppose one can tell, never having had 
any experience.” 

“Wouldn’t you like to have a little experi- 
ence?” Chang drew her closer to him, and looked 
down at her. 

“I think that every girl likes to have some 
one in love with her,” Mary said thoughtfully. 

Her very directness embarrassed Chang, 
which was a new sensation for him. He was not 
used to a woman who could not hold her own 
against him. Again it came to him that he would 
be wiser not to go farther, but Chang was not 
one to listen to wisdom’s small voice. “You are 
a strange little girl, do you know it? I would 
like to see what you would do to a man who made 
love to you, but I am half afraid to try.” He put 
his free hand under her chin and turned her face 
up to him, kissing her on the lips, first gently, 
then as the sweet freshness of her stole to his 
senses pressing on them, hot kisses that made 
her pulses quicken and beat in the soft throat. 

Presently he drew her very close to him, cov- 
ering her mouth and throat with long passionate 
kisses, until he felt her body tighten against his. 


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After a time her arms stole up and around his 
neck, and she returned kiss for kiss. 

It was he who came back to his senses first, 
for over her shoulder he had glimpsed the time 
from the illuminated dial of his wrist watch. 
“Good God, girl, it is nearly ten o’clock, and we 
will have to go some to get back in time.” 

He released her quickly, and turned his at- 
tention to starting and turning the car. He had 
no wish to be caught out, and get them both into 
trouble. Awkward situations did not appeal to 
Chang. 

She sank back in the seat beside him with 
a little fluttering sigh, and sat silent. Once glanc- 
ing at her he saw her eyes shining in the dark- 
ness like two stars. She was beyond caring wheth- 
er they got to the Hospital in time or not. But 
they soon reached the street comer, and with a 
hurried goodnight, he dropped her out and drove 
off towards the city at his own frantic pace, which 
was the despair of the traffic police since his car 
bore the Red Cross. 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN. 


Joan Hears a Few Truths. 

There had been a staff meeting, and in spite 
of Joan’s protests, it was decided that for the 
good of the school, the two girls. Miss Norton, 
and Miss Henry, must be discharged. They had 
broken all the rules worth breaking. They smoked, 
they swore, they drank, they stayed out until all 
hours of the night without permission, they fre- 
quented inns of questionable reputation, and last, 
but not least, they had entertained staff doctors 
in their rooms after midnight. All these things 
were brought up and discussed at the meeting, 
but nothing had been said as to who the staff 
doctors were who had visited their rooms, and 
were in a measure responsible for these things. 
No one spoke in favor of the girls, and they were 
not allowed, of course, to speak for themselves. 
In fact, it never occurred to anyone that they 
might have a right to say a few words for them- 
selves. No one took into consideration that they 
were both excellent nurses, and while on duty 
their deportment could never be questioned. No 
one seemed to think of the time they had both 
entered the school, ready to do their best. No 
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one took into consideration that neither of the 
girls were naturally bad, but both endowed with 
a superfluous amount of animal spirits, that the 
confines of the hospital rules drove to distraction. 

Joan was not present at the meeting, or per- 
haps some of this might have been spoken of. 
Doctor Jones had advised her not to be present, 
in his heart he was afraid of what she would say 
to old Doctor Thompson. On the whole, he thank- 
ed Fortune that she had not been there, before 
the meeting was over, for of all the staff. Doctor 
Thompson was hardest upon the girls, and had 
the most to say about discharging them. 

But it was upon Joan that the task of telling 
them fell, and Joan, instead of the staff who re- 
ceived the brunt of their wrath. 

There was some of her father’s hardness in 
Joan’s face as she bade them come into the of- 
fice. The hardness was not for them, but the 
girls could not very well know that. Both having 
a guilty conscience for many, many broken rules, 
they were afraid that the summons meant some- 
thing serious, and both as they came in had a 
certain defiance of manner not lost on Joan. 

“Please be seated, girls ; I have something of 
importance to say to you. It is my unpleasant 
duty to tell you that the school has no longer 
any need of your services.” 

Miss Morton’s pretty face whitened to the 
lips, but Miss Henry only sat still looking at 
Joan. 


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127 


“I suppose it is our right to know why ?” she 
said coolly. 

“Yes, it is, of course, your right to know 
why, if you have not already guessed. For some 
time past you have both been breaking rules. At 
first I let them go by, thinking that you would 
soon see the folly of your ways and do better, 
but things have only been getting worse, until 
we find that for the sake of the other girls in 
the school, younger nurses who may be tempted 
to follow in your footsteps, we will have to sever 
your connections with the hospital and train- 
ing school." 

It was Miss Henry who spoke again. “We 
have not broken any more rules than others, why 
should we be the ones to suffer and the others 
get off free? I do not think it is very fair.” 

“Just what do you mean by others?” 

“Other girls — they are breaking rules every 
day, and yet nothing is said to them.” 

“Anyone I discover breaking rules is always 
punished according to the offense, Miss Henry. I 
think you know that I have tried to be fair to all 
of the girls.” 

“You will find, Henry, that the only sin in 
this place is getting caught,” Miss Norton said, 
a bitter sneer twisting her pretty face. 

“But Miss Murray, what of the staff doctors 
who make these rules, and are the first to break 
them — or tempt us to break them? Why must 
we be punished for what is mostly their fault?” 

“The rules are made for the nurses. Miss 


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Henry, not for the staff doctors. If those same 
doctors tempt the girls to disobey orders, then 
I think the girls should refuse in such a manner 
that the offense would never be repeated.” 

“Yes, and if we do that, that same staff doc- 
tor would lead us a life of Hell all the remainder 
of our training. Get a staff doctor down on us 
and we are done.” 

“Please explain what you mean by that, Miss 
Norton.” 

“I mean that once a staff doctor takes a dis- 
like to a nurse, he makes her training as un- 
pleasant as possible. He nags our work, insults 
us before other nurses, shows us up in every 
way he can, and finally gives the other surgeons 
the impression that we are not good nurses. You 
know what I mean. Miss Murray, you are not 
blind to these things, surely.” 

“Do you think the same as Miss Norton, Miss 
Henry?” 

“I do. Miss Murray. I think you will find all 
the nurses think the same. It is surprising if 
you do not know it yourself.” 

“I am sorry to say that I do know it. Miss 
Henry; but there is one thing I should like to 
point out to you. When the time comes for you 
to be found out in breaking rules, these same 
staff doctors whose friendships you are depend- 
ing, fail you in the end. It is only when you do 
not imperil their good name by being found out 
that they remain your friends. So, after all, what 
good is the friendship, if it refuses to help when 


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you need it most? When things like this occur, 
why do you not depend on your superintendent. 
If the surgeons bother you, if you come to me 
I at least would try to help you.” 

“We could not come to you. Miss Murray. 
What could you do to help us? Your hands are 
tied, because the success of your Hospital de- 
pends on the prestige of these doctors, and we 
would only put you ‘in bad’ with them if we 
came to you,” Miss Henry said quietly. 

“At least you could have given me a trial,” 
Joan said gently. “But tell me, is there no other 
reason why you go out with the staff doctor* 
than to gain their friendships?” 

It was Miss Norton who answered this time. 
“No, that is not the only reason. We come to 
the training school with the idea that we are 
coming to a place a little bit better than the aver- 
age, and what do we find? That we have shut 
the doors of a prison behind us and gone inside. 
We are driven like slaves from daylight till dark, 
and what do we get out of it? Knowledge, and 
a slip of paper that says we are qualified to go 
on with the profession — that is, some of us do, 
and the others get a lot of knowledge that avails 
nothing, and spoils their outlook on life. What 
do we get in the end? Broken ideals, health, and 
often broken hearts. After three years in prison 
how does a man face the world again — the same 
man that went in? There is very little differ- 
ence between prison life and this, only we work 
longer hours, get less to eat, and no pleasure. All 
the ordinary pleasures and recreation that human 


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nature craves are forbidden in the rules. Why 
do we go out with the doctors, you ask. They 
give us a decent meal, sometimes a little pocket 
money — most of us are poor girls when we come 
here, and they give us a little recreation. We get 
a chance to see outside our prison, once in 
awhile.” 

“But Miss Norton, this is not a prison, for 
you are free to leave and go elsewhere whenever 
you wish.” 

“Yes, and where will we go? We have 
wasted a year or two, we have nothing to spend, 
physically, mentally, financially on another ex- 
periment — ^besides no one wants a discharged 
nurse — ^for even if we do leave on our own account, 
thanks to the hospital, every one thinks we have 
committed some crime. Any way hospital life 
unfits a girl for any other kind of work.” 

“What did you mean by getting less to eat in 
a hospital than anywhere else. Are my nurses 
not getting proper food?” 

“We get what the maids leave. Go down to 
the kitchen, and into the maids’ dining room and 
look at the table, then look at ours, and judge for 
yourself. If we come in late they refuse to serve 
us. If we have an operation and miss lunch time, 
or dinner, do we get anything to eat? Not we! 
We wait until the next meal or do without. If we 
go to old “Quig” — Miss Baker — she says that the 
maids can’t work overtime, they won’t stay if 
they have to, and if we can’t get in to meals she 
does not see what she can do. The only ones who 


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131 


get any cinch out of this hospital life are the 
maids and the dietician, if you ask me.” 

Joan gave the girl a quizzical look. “Per- 
haps,” she said gravely, “if I discharged a nurse 
more often I should learn something interesting 
about my own Hospital. I am glad you told me 
these things. Miss Norton. I am afraid Miss 
Henry would never have had the courage to do 
so. You have done me a kindness, and one to the 
girls you are leaving behind I think, but I am 
sorry you did not tell me about these things long 
ago, and perhaps matters would have been dif- 
ferent. But now that things have reached this 
sorry pass, can you tell me of anything that I 
can do to help either of you?” 

“I do not see that you can help us any. Miss 
Murray. I guess we are done. I daresay we de- 
serve all we got, but it looks to me like a pretty 
rotten deal all through,” Miss Norton answered. 

“But you have been here almost three years, 
the both of you, and whatever may have been 
your deportment outside the Hospital you have 
been very good nurses. Surely there is something 
you would let me do for you?” 

“There is nothing. Miss Murray. You spoke 
of us being good nurses. Who is there to believe 
it now without a recommendation?” 

“That is what I wished to speak about. I at 
least can give you that. You are competent nurses, 
and could surely take up outside work as under 
graduates. Doctor Jones and I can at least sign 
a paper to that effect. You can both go to an- 
other city and start over again. It is the fairest 


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thing that I can do for you, and in having a sec- 
ond chance we often see the folly of wasting our 
first and do better. I will also pay you for your 
three years, at the rate of thirty dollars a month, 
and that will give you a start, and pay you in a 
measure for the time you have wasted here.” 

“We can’t take the money. Miss Murray, but 
will be thankful for the paper,” Miss Henry said 
slowly. 

“I shall feel much better in giving you the 
money. You have certainly earned it, and since 
you have forfeited your diplomas you have noth- 
ing to show for these years when you might have 
been earning money elsewhere. I am sorry that 
my training school has brought you to this. Per- 
haps it is more to blame than you girls, anyway 
I think at least it owes you your wages.” She 
rose and held out her hand to them. “Now I will 
say goodbye, and I hope you both will take ad- 
vantage of your chance, and try to make your 
lives worth while. I will send over a cheque and 
the paper I spoke of tonight after I have seen 
Doctor Jones. Please remember, girls, if in the 
future you feel that I can help you in any way 
I am still your friend.” 

Miss Henry thanked her gravely as she shook 
hands. The simple handshake was perhaps more 
to her at that moment than all Joan had offered, 
but Miss Norton’s pretty blue eyes were full of 
tears as she took Joan’s hand. “You are a better 
sport than any of us. Miss Murray. If we had 
been more like you we would have gotten on bet- 
ter. It is a pity we girls do not know how worth 


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133 


while you are, and how much of a friend you 
really are to us, until it is too late.” 

After they had gone Joan thought of the 
girl’s words. Was it her fault after all? She 
wondered that the girls did not know she was 
their friend. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN. 

Pilgrim’s Point. 

“Joan, why have you put two graduates on 
in the surgery?” Doctor Jones asked coming into 
the accident room where Joan was doing a dress- 
ing. When he saw that she had a patient it was 
too late to recall his unlucky break in calling her 
by her first name, and he was not surprised that 
Joan answered him somewhat shortly, when she 
did speak, which was not until she had dismissed 
the patient. 

“A very simple reason. Doctor Jones. Even 
if the staff see fit to dispose of my two best 
nurses they still want nurses to do their work. I 
can’t fill their places with probationers, you 
know.” 

“You have not taken in any more probation- 
ers for a time, have you?” 

“My previous experience with probationers 
is not such that I am anxious to take in more 
than necessary.” 

“How is the little Davis girl coming on?” 
Jones asked. “I have not seen her about the 
wards lately.” 

“She is still in the diet kitchen. As for her 
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getting on — she will make a better dietition than 
a nurse. If I had my way she would stay in the 
diet kitchen until the end of her training. If 
she does not show signs of improvement soon she 
will never make a nurse. I never saw a girl so 
slow — she is the despair of the ward nurses.” 

“Too bad — I hoped she would turn out well 
— ^her father is such a nice old chap.” 

“I don’t see what that has to do with her 
nursing ability, Doctor Jones. She may be a nice 
girl, but she is anything but a good nurse.” 

“But her father is a good doctor. He is, in 
some ways, one of the cleverest chaps I know.” 

“Well, his daughter does not seem to inherit 
any of his cleverness. If she did she has suc- 
ceeded in disguising it beautifully. I have done 
the best I could with her.” 

“Of course you have, Joan. I am not in- 
sinuating that you did not.” 

“Please refrain from calling me Joan on 
duty,” Joan said sharply, more sharply than she 
had ever spoken to Jones. They were nearer to 
quarreling than they had ever been, then Jones 
said gently: 

“What is the matter dear?” 

“I am out of temper this morning, I am 
afraid. I have just learned that Miss Baker — 
better known as ‘Quig’ by the girls — is favoring 
the maids and not giving the nurses enough to 
eat.” 

“Girls not getting enough to eat?” Jones 
laughed. “Surely that is a good one. Don’t let 


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that worry you, child, they would kick if they 
were fed like the angels.” 

“I daresay they would, considering there are 
no angels among them,” Joan said, with a little 
crooked smile. “Good morning. Doctor Chang.” 

Chang had come in to see if he might pre- 
vail on Joan to go riding with him. He had in- 
vented an excuse to Pilgrim’s Point, some miles 
away, in the hope that Joan would consent to 
accompany him. 

It was sometime before he and Jones suc- 
ceeded in convincing her that she was free to go 
if she choose, and finally, more because she was 
very tired of her work and the Hospital, and a 
long ride with Chang looked very alluring, than 
because of their urging, she consented to go. 

It was a glorious day, rather late in the fall, 
and they started as soon as they had finished 
lunch. Pilgrim’s Point was down the shore some 
thirty miles, and they took the road by the sea. 
The air was crisp and clear, with a hint of winter 
not yet come, yet with a lingering of the sum- 
mer, now past, in its fresh breeze, and as they 
rode along Joan felt again, as she always felt 
when with Chang, young and girlish and free. 

Chang seldom talked when he drove, his 
heart-breaking pace did not permit it. He had 
done so once to his sorrow — the results had been 
disastrous, and even now he thought of it with 
a sense of shame as he tended to his car and the 
road ahead, only taking time to glance once and 
again at the wild-rose face beside him. 

Above the steady purr of the car came the 


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roar of the sea, dashing against the rocks. Dreams 
filled the girl’s heart again and she seemed to be 
standing on the brink of a new world, with timid 
uncertain feet. Life opened up before her, a 
strange vista of dreams, where there were no 
prison walls, no barred doors behind which she 
must forever dwell. Life had taught Joan Murray 
many things, but one thing she had yet to learn, 
and that was, in blind ignorance we build our own 
prison bars. The fruit in other gardens looks 
fairer only because we cannot reach it — the win- 
dows of the house across the way are only gold 
because we cannot get near enough to see what 
they really are. 

They put the car up at the inn where later 
they were to have dinner, and then they went for 
a walk along the path to the point that jutted far 
out, giving the place its name. Below, the sea 
beat itself unavailingly against the rocks, its 
white capped waves thrown high against their 
sheer surface, reaching up to them long fingers, 
as they leaned over the parapet looking at it. 

Joan hummed the words over to herself of 
an old time song: 

“I am the sexton of the sea, 

I am a derelict floating free. 

Here I gather them, great and small. 

And bury them, youth and age and all.” 
Looking over the wide waste of gray waters 
she said, “I love it — it fascinates me. It is so 
strong and sure, so free and cruel. We can de- 
stroy all else, but we never can destroy the sea. 
I love strong, free things. Doctor Chang; some- 


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times I am afraid that I am cruel, I do not like 
weakness in anything.” 

“Little captive bird,” he said tenderly, “with 
never a chance to try your wings — ^no wonder that 
you love what is strong and free. Oh, Joan, if 
only I could be of some help.” 

He reached out and laid a hand over hers, 
“Oh, my dear, I can say so little to plead my 
cause. I am so unworthy and weak. But, Joan, 
can you not give me a little hope?” 

She looked up at him and her little hand stole 
once more to the ribbon on his tunic. “I wonder 
if you realize what it will mean to you if I accept 
your love?” 

“It would mean the world to me, dear. I 
would spend the remainder of my life trying to 
be worthy of you.” And Lu Chang meant what 
he said then. It was easy to think of being a 
good man, with the sun on the sea, and he and 
Joan far from all else on earth alone. He could 
not resist a woman’s charms, but he had never 
loved a woman until he had met Joan Murray. 
She had brought out all that was best in him, 
and there was much of good in Chang in spite 
of his wickedness. 

“It would mean that a great care would have 
fallen on your shoulders. You could have no 
home, only the hospital, no social life in which I 
could join you. I am not like other girls that 
you have known. Always have I lived this 
strange life, shut away from the world that you 
know. I am tied to an inheritance that must be 


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mine through life, and you would be tying your- 
self to it, too.” 

"But I would have the one woman in the 
world that could make me a man, dear. Do you 
know what love means? It means that two souls 
are united as one, never to part, one is not com- 
plete without the other. There is a beautiful 
legend about love. It says that when the angels 
drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden 
they tore all the beautiful plants out by the roots 
to fade and die, but one little plant was over- 
looked and left to grow alone. It grew and spread 
its seeds over all the earth, and it had flowers 
that were the color of blood and of sin, and its 
name was Love. It has grown many species since 
then, some soils made it rich and red and beau- 
tiful, others made it grow sickly and mean, and 
others made it grow dark and purple like Passion. 
There is a love that starts at the head and goes 
down into the heart and lasts forever. There is 
a love that starts at the heart and goes to the 
head, it lasts for only a day, and it is sweet with 
the sweetness of life and bitter with the bitter- 
ness of death. But the love that I have for you, 
dear heart, is all these loves molded into one. It 
means all that is good in me, everything that 
makes life worthy. It is the only wonderful 
thing, the only eternal thing that I know. It 
means heaven with you, and hell without you.” 

The sinking sun cast a last scattered ray over 
them, flooding them with its glory, the breeze 
stirred the dead leaves at their feet. In the trees 
above the birds twittered sleepily, and the sweet 


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mournful tones of the violin came to them faintly. 
Dvorak’s “Humoreske” sobbed across the night 
wind — ^that strange parody on life — with its 
laughter and its tears, its sadness and glory. 
“Life is a Garden of Mistakes,” it called to them, 
“We beat our lives out against its locked gates; 
we take the wrong paths, and we gather the 
wrong flowers. We give our best uselessly, in 
the place where it does no good, and we give 
nothing, where we should give all. We laugh 
when our hearts are broken, and we weep over a 
faded flower. We waste our years in vain seek- 
ing for happiness, while happiness lies a crushed 
and overlooked flower at our feet. We have let 
it die for lack of tender care, while we watered 
the weeds with our tears.” But neither heeded 
its warning while they looked into each other’s 
eyes — the world forgotten. 

“With a love like that we could make life 
worth while, could we not?” she said gently. 

He reached out his arms to her, “Joan, do 
you know what we could make life? I am not a 
good man, I have often proven myself worse than 
a cur, but if you will take me for what I am now 
— if you will give to me your love — I will try to 
live the remainder of my life in atonement for 
the things I have done — I shall try to wash out 
the sins that lie between us, with years of faith- 
ful service.” 

She put her hands into his gently. “It is not 
because of what you are, or what you will be- 
come, dear, but because I love you better than 
life itself,” she said slowly, looking up into his 


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face, now drawn hard with some emotion that 
she could not understand. 

With a little exclamation he gathered her 
into his arms and drew her close to him, but he 
was gentle, almost reverent as he held her there, 
for something great and wonderful had entered 
Lu Chang’s heart. 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN. 

The Nurses’ Ball. 

Every year the Hospital gave to the nurses 
a Christmas eve ball. It was the one social event 
of the year after the graduation exercises and 
banquet in June. The Nurses’ Home was far 
enough from the hospital itself so that any sounds 
of revelry did not disturb the patients, so the 
beautiful Home was turned into a scene of light 
and music, laughter and dancing. Each nurse 
was allowed so many invitations for her friends 
and the doctors and their wives were always 
present, too. 

Joan, for that night, always hired a number 
of graduates to take the place of the night nurses, 
so that no nurse felt the call of duty, and all were 
free to get as much pleasure from the event as 
possible. 

The year before, on account of Doctor Mur- 
ray’s death, there had been no ball, so that this 
year Joan felt that they must make it a time of 
double rejoicing, and make up to the girls for the 
lack of it before. She, too, felt that it was a 
time for double rejoicing, for although no one 
but Jones as yet knew of her engagement, she 
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had the joy of sharing her plans with both Chang 
and Jones. Jones was never forgotten in any of 
those plans, for he was a well loved friend of both, 
and Joan had turned all her life to him, even now 
unconsciously she turned to him first in any crisis. 

It was a cold, still night, with the stars thick 
overhead when Joan crossed over from the somber 
stillness of the Hospital to the brilliantly lighted 
and gayety filled Home. In the distance she heard 
the Christmas carol singers going about the city 
streets with their Christmas songs, and she knew 
that presently they would ascend the hill to the 
Hospital. It was a pleasant custom she thought 
as she walked along, but she always rather 
dreaded its effects on the patients. A hospital 
was always a sad enough place to be at Christ- 
mas, without being reminded of the joy-making 
of the outer world. 

At the last ball she had been a girl among 
the girls, now she was their head, but just for 
tonight she meant to make them forget that and 
be a girl again. 

The guests were just arriving when she came 
in and the girls usually so shy of her gathered 
around her at once. Everything was very infor- 
mal and gay, after a time Joan found herself danc- 
ing with a tall grave young man, whose name she 
had not caught, but who turned out later to be 
Miss Grey’s brother who was studying medicine 
in a nearby college | It was evident that he had 
taken Joan for one of the younger nurses, for he 
talked very seriously of the profession, until Joan 
who wanted more than anything tonight, to for- 


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get her profession, was glad to turn him over to 
some of the other girls. 

Old Doctor Thompson claimed her next for a 
fox trot, much to Joan’s disgust as she had no love 
in her heart for the man. Later she expressed 
herself somewhat forcibly to Doctor Jones with 
whom she was dancing, “It would be more to Doc- 
tor Thompson’s credit, if he had stayed home with 
Mrs. Thompson, instead of smirking around, try- 
ing to dance with young girls.’’ 

Jones laughed, “You have not forgiven him, 
have you — however the girls seem to like him all 
right.’’ 

“They have to — even I have to smile and 
dance with him and pretend to be interested in 
his love making, when all the time I hate him in 
my heart.’’ 

Jones shrugged, and whirled her away into 
the dance, holding her tenderly in the curve of 
his arms, knowing that the precious moments with 
her there were only too short indeed. 

When they came to a somewhat breathless 
stop a few minutes later, Joan noticed for the 
first time that Chang was not dancing and spoke 
of it to Jones. “Did you notice. Less, that Doctor 
Chang has not danced tonight, or at least I did 
not see him. Is it not strange? Lu seems to me 
to be one who would love dancing.” 

Jones gave her a keen little glance. “He can’t 
dance now, Joan — with his foot.” 

Joan looked up, “His foot?” she questioned 
vaguely. 


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Jones gave her another keen look, opened his 
mouth to say something, then closed it again — 
after all it was not up to him to tell Joan what 
Chang had evidently chosen to be quiet about. 

When he did not answer Joan looked up again 
with a little more interest in her eyes. “What did 
you say about his foot, Les?” 

“He had it hurt in France — guess his ankle is a 
bit stiff and he does not want to trust it on this 
slippy floor,” Jones said casually, so casually that 
Joan failed to notice that he had chosen his words 
carefully, and that there was a puzzled look on 
his face as he looked at her. 

Chang from the other side of the room 
watched Jones and Joan with somber eyes. It 
had seemed that all evening he could not get near 
to her, so many claimed her attention. In fact, it 
had seemed so ever since her engagement, when 
he needed her most she was always busy with 
something else. It was not that Joan did not love 
him very much, it was more that she failea to 
understand the strange contradictory nature with 
which she dealt. 

Of late piqued and disappointed, Chang had 
let himself drop back into his old careless ways. 
He had meant to be a man and act right. He had 
even made an attempt to resist temptation, when 
it came to him in the shape of Mary Davis, by 
averting his head when he passed her one day in 
the corridor, much to the girl’s astonishment. But 
one night on his way to the city he had met her 
and stopped to take her into his car. 


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And SO it had gone on until now. In the days 
when Joan had kept him by her side with her 
little winning ways and wonderful smile, he vowed 
allegiance in his heart, but with the night Mary 
came to meet him and the vows were forgotten 
again — ^for verily the road to hell is paved with 
forgotten vows. When it vaguely troubled him, 
he told himself that, after all, Mary was his only 
recreation now, and a man must have some little 
affair. They picked out the strong, good women 
for their wives, but the weak ones were theirs for 
the asking, to pick up and leave at will, and Mary 
was undoubtedly weak. 

Other things came up to bother Chang, these 
days. Old affairs that he had hoped dead, cropped 
up unexpectedly, and called attention to them- 
selves, much to his disgust. He had surely found 
the path of returning righteousness strewn with 
many thorns. Joan knew that he was not a saint, 
but he was not sure just what she would do if she 
were brought face to face with some of the epi- 
sodes of his varied career. She was willing to 
take him for what he was and overlook his past, 
but he doubted her willingness to pass over some 
of the things he had done. There is a vast differ- 
ence between knowing vaguely that someone has 
been wicked and meeting face to face some of the 
sins. 

So Chang was vaguely uneasy. Only that 
day, coming down the corridor, he had met Mrs. 
Godwin, who had been calling on Joan. Her face 
grew very white at sight of him, but he had held 


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out his hand coolly enough when he found that 
there was no way of avoiding her. 

“How are you, Mrs. Godwin? I am glad to 
see you around again.” In a lower tone he had 
added, “For Heaven sake, pull yourself together, 
and don’t look at me as though I were a ghost!” 

“You are a ghost to me, Lu Chang,” she 
said quietly. “You might have been dead for all 
I knew. The last time I saw you we were going 
over a bank in your car.” Suddenly her lips trem- 
bled. “Have you no other words for me, Lu?” 

“What should I say ?” he asked sharply. “Did 
I not do the best thing for both of us ? If Godwin 
had ever found out the whole thing he would have 
divorced you. As it is, he can get no evidence.” 

“I should have been better off, perhaps, had 
he done so,” she said slowly, looking at him. “At 
least I should have been free.” 

Chang’s fair face flushed at the look in her 
eyes. “Nonsense,” he said quickly, “the doctor is 
a good man, and after a while he will see this 
thing in a different light. Don’t be foolish, 
Jeane.” 

“You never loved me, Lu.” 

He shrugged, “I always liked you, Jeane. 
You were a good little sport until I went away. 
We are still good friends, I hope — you will see 
some day soon, how wise I have been in what I 
have done. However, the less we are seen to- 
gether, the better — some fool is always ready to 
notice and strike at the truth.” 

Her lips curled suddenly. “You are afraid 


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that Joan Murray will notice, and come to the 
truth. It is a pity that I did not tell her at first.” 

“I wouldn’t tell her, if I were you,” Chang 
said evenly, but there was something in his tones 
that boded no good for one who carried tales to 
Joan. 

Mrs. Godwin laughed hardly. “I will not tell 
her. She will find out soon enough what you are, 
Lu Chang. If I were the only one it would be 
different, but I am only one of many poor fools, 
and some day one of those many will show Joan 
what you have been, what you will always be. 
You may looked surprised, but I have learned 
much of life and of you since that day many 
months ago, that you left me for dead out on the 
River Road, and like the coward you are, hid your- 
self away, and left a woman alone to face her 
folly.” 

“I would have been a fool to have done other- 
wise,” Chang said with a bitter sneer, that Les- 
sing Jones coming around a turn in the corridor 
had caught. 

“Ah, Chang, I was looking for you. How do 
you do, Mrs. Godwin.” 

When the woman had gone, Jones had given 
his friend a keen look, and a half smile curved his 
fine mouth. “It doesn’t pay after all, does it 
Chang?” he said quietly. 

“What doesn’t pay?” Chang asked savagely, 
then as Jones did not answer, he went on. “No, 
of course it doesn’t pay to get mixed up with a 
pretty woman who has a husband like Godwin. 


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149 


But how was I to know that she would make a 
fool of herself as well as me? We were friends, 
why couldn’t she leave it at that ? A nice how-de- 
do if Joan gets on to this.” It had never occurred 
to Chang that Jones was in love with Joan. 

“Don’t Joan know yet?” 

“Oh, she knows what I am all right. Don’t 
think she is laboring under the impression that I 
am any saint. But I don’t want things rubbed 
into her, see ? She and Mrs. Godwin were friends, 
and God knows what the woman has told her — 
women are so damn confidential. I wish to God I 
were like you, Jones, and could leave women 
alone.” 

Some of this was going through Chang’s head 
as he stood there watching Joan. He had almost 
forgotten Mary Davis was standing beside him 
until she spoke to him. 

She sprang a question at him rather unex- 
pectedly, it almost seemed that she had read his 
perturbed thoughts. “Doctor Chang, is it true 
that you are going to marry Miss Murray?” 

He looked down at her with a frown. “Who 
told you that?” he asked sharply. 

“I heard it — ^never mind where — ^just tell me 
is it true?” 

He was tempted to tell her the truth, for he 
was getting tired of her, and this would easily 
end it all, before things went farther. He won- 
dered if Mary expected him to marry her. There 
had never been any question of marriage between 
them. The girl had accepted his attentions with- 


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out question, giving freely of herself. Now as he 
glanced down at her, something in her face stop- 
ped the words on his lips, and he had not the 
courage to go on, so he let the opportunity pass 
and shook his head. “Whatever made you think 
of that?” 

“Perhaps because I was so afraid it was true,” 
she answered him. 

“You should be a wiser little girl than to be- 
lieve all you hear,” he told her gently. “But 
would you mind very much if I were to marry, 
Mary ?” ' 

She gave him a strange look, and for the first 
time Chang noticed that the girl’s face had grown 
in some way harder. Some of the childishness 
had been washed out of the blue eyes, as though 
knowledge had robbed them of their innocense. 
The soft lips had lost their curves, and become 
firm. “I should mind very much,” she answered 
thoughtfully. “I should know then that you did 
not love me, that you never had.” 

Mary’s words lingered in his mind, long after. 
But now Joan claimed his thoughts by coming up 
to him. 

“I am so sorry that you cannot dance, Lu,” 
she said. “Less said that your ankle was still 
stiff, from an injury received in France. “Why 
did you not tell me about it, dear?” 

Chang reddened. “Jones is a fool ! There is 
nothing the matter with my ankle. Come, they 
are starting a waltz. I did not dance before be- 
cause I wanted my first dance with you.” 


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“But Lu — if your ankle isn’t strong— the 
floor is very smooth.” 

“My ankle is all right,” Chang said abruptly, 
putting his arm around her and guiding her into 
the waltz. But they had not been on the floor 
many minutes before Joan noticed that Chang’s 
face had gone almost grey with pain, and beads 
of perspiration stood out on his forehead. 

“Lu, take me in — the heat is making me 
dizzy,” she said as they passed a door leading to 
the corridor. Once outside she lead him into a 
small sitting room near. 

“Lu,” she said gently, when they were seated. 
“Why did you do that? Why did you tell me that 
your foot was all right ?” 

He leaned forward and caught her hands in 
his. “Because it drives me mad to see you danc- 
ing with other men. I cannot bear to see another 
man’s arms around you, dear.” 

“How foolish, Lu. You know that I have to 
dance with these people. What would they think 
if I did not? It is a part of my life as is every- 
thing else. What would you do if I were always 
going to balls and leading a social life?” 

He looked at her miserably, “I am a fool, 
dear, I know. But oh, Joan, I love you so. Don’t 
you see that I cannot help being jealous?” 

Joan smiled on him lightly. “Poor, foolish 
boy,” she said gently, lovingly, yet without the 
understanding that he needed most. She had no 
conception of the passion of pain and unrest, 
seething in his breast, as she left him with a tiny 


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pat on the shoulder and fluttered back to her 
guests. 

Here Jones came upon him later, and Jones, 
who understood things much better; Jones who 
knew both Chang and Joan very, very well, put a 
gentle hand on his shoulder. “What is it, Chang?” 

Chang turned on him sharply. “What the 
devil did you tell Joan about my foot?” 

Jones drew up a chair and sat down. “My 
dear Chang, she asked me why you were not danc- 
ing and I said you couldn’t with your foot. It 
never occurred to me that you had not told her 
until she asked me what was the matter with it. I 
said the first thing that came into my head then 
— that your ankle was stiff.” He frowned, “Why 
didn’t you tell her, Chang?” 

Chang looked at him defiantly. “I won’t tell 
her a thing like that.” 

“But for the love of Heaven, man, she has to 
know sometime.” 

“Yes, I suppose, but not until after we are 
married.” 

“Why not? Are you ashamed of it?” 

“Well, it is nothing to be proud of, you fool !” 

“Proud of? Well Chang if I lost my foot, 
doing what you did, I think I should be proud of 
it, dam proud of it.” 

“No you wouldn’t. And you would not want 
the girl you loved to know about it, either.” 

“Good Lord, Chang, talk of woman swallow- 
ing camels and straining at gnats — do you for a 
moment think that Joan would love you any less 


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for having lost your foot doing a brave deed — 
saving men from death — why man she would love 
you a thousand times more.” 

“I will run no risks any way. Don’t let us 
talk of the infernal thing anyway, it gives me the 
creeps. If you had any tact Jones, you would 
shut up about the thing,” Chang said peevishly. 

“But Lord man, how was I to know you were 
so sensitive about it? You a surgeon, and Joan 
a nurse — you should be ashamed of yourself, not 
the foot.” 

“Wait until you go around, limping on half a 
leg — oh the devil, man, can’t you talk of some- 
thing else? I might have been in France to the 
last if one surgeon had kept his mouth shut. I 
could drive a car, and a plane, and walk with it, 
why in blazes couldn’t I fight with it?” 

Jones arose. “I believe the guests are going 
Chang, perhaps we had better put in an appear- 
ance. Thank God, the great event is over for an- 
other year. This is the first time that we did not 
have an operation in the middle of it.” 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN. 


A Taste of the Outside World. 

January came with flurries of snow and icy 
winds. Winter settled down to make the most of 
its brief stay. But within the hospital world 
things went on as always, little it mattered to its 
inmates what season it might be, summer or win- 
ter, spring or autumn. 

One cold night Jones divesting himself of his 
fur coat in the doctor’s smoking room, saw Joan 
go by the door, dressed for the outdoors, and 
called to her. “Whither, fair maiden, this cold 
night?” 

She stopped and waited for him to come out 
into the corridor. “Only to dine with doctor and 
Mrs. Gerry, and to the theater afterwards. 
Everything is quiet in the wards.” As she looked 
at him it struck her with something of a pang, 
that on other nights like these he had formed one 
of the dinner and theater party, tonight it was to 
be Chang. She wondered if Jones had been re- 
sponsible for the change. It was like him to ar- 
range it so she might have one added pleasure. 

He walked down the corridor to the door with 
her, and with a little tender movement, drew her 
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165 


cloak around her as he put her in the car Doctor 
Gerry had sent for her. 

“The nights are cold, and you are used to 
high collars,” he said, in smiling explanation. 

For a moment she leaned forward and laid 
a small hand on his arm. “Dear old Less,” she 
said softly, “I wish you were coming, too.” 

He shook his head at her. “You will have 
someone else to bring you home and look after 
you. I have washed my hands of you,” he said, 
but the pain in his dark eyes belied the lightness 
of his words and tone. 

She gave him one of her smiles as he closed 
the door and stood back to let the car drive away. 
Once she glanced back through the window, and 
saw him standing bare headed on the steps as she 
had left him, watching the car until it rounded 
the bend out of his sight, and the picture lingered 
with her even as she sat at dinner with Chang at 
her side. 

It was only when she sat in the box at the 
theater, with Chang’s fair head bent close to 
her’s, and the warm glow of his presence filled 
her, that the memory of that lonely figure passed 
out of her mind. 

Joan looked her best tonight. Perhaps be- 
cause she was so often confined to the white of 
her uniform, she loved bright colors in her other 
gowns, and they suited her well. The old-rose 
and silver gown she had chosen for tonight, 
brought out the shell-like tints of her face. She 
did not look like the sober little Joan, that he 


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knew, Chang thought as he watched her. She 
was more like a fairy from some other land, in 
her bright gown and the jewels at her throat, and 
in her soft hair. 

“I am like a gipsy, when I get away from 
the hospital, and a chance to change into evening 
gown,” she had told Mrs. Gerry that night. “I 
should like always to wear bright colors, and 
many, many jewels. See I love to watch them 
sparkle in my hair, and on my hands and neck.” 
And Mrs. Gerry had kissed her and told her that 
indeed she had been made for bright things. 

The play was a gay, frothy thing, a bit of 
musical comedy, very popular that season, but 
Joan watched it with fascinated eyes. She loved 
the light and music, the gay costumes, even the 
paint and powder. 

“I should like to be one of them,” she whis- 
pered to Chang, as the chorus came in, in butter- 
fly costume. 

Chang laughed. “You never would prance 
around in that abbreviated gown,” he said. 

“Oh,” she flushed a little. “I did not think 
of that. Still, probably I should get used to it. I 
should love to dance in and out like that, and 
change my costume every hour — think of it — 
every night!” 

“I have been basely deceived,” Chang said in 
mock horror. “I thought you a sober minded in- 
dividual. I find you very frivolous.” 

“You would never believe how very frivolous 
I really am. You could never imagine the awful 


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things I sometimes want to do,” she said smiling. 
“This is only a mild sample. I should like to be a 
chorus girl.” 

“Yes, you would,” he mocked. “Get into a 
cheap suit at the end of every evening and tramp 
home through the snow, dog tired, to a tiny hall 
bedroom, poach yourself an egg over the gas jet, 
and then crawl into a hard bed. Ah, delightful !” 

“But I thoughts” 

“Dear girl, a chorus girl makes from fifteen 
to twenty-five dollars a week. Unless she gets 
help from outside, other than her salary, that is 
the way she lives. And I guess you will find that 
a great many do live that way.” 

Joan digested these facts silently, thinking 
of her own luxurious apartments. It did not occur 
to her to ask Chang how he knew so much about 
the way a chorus girl lived. 

“But she has no care. Think of what it must 
be to be free,” she said after a moment. 

“No care?” Chang laughed shortly. “Well I 
should imagine it some problem to pay rent and 
board and clothes and the hundred and one things 
a girl wants out of fifteen dollars, or even twenty- 
five. Oh, Joan, you are only a little girl, in spite 
of your responsibilities, aren’t you?” He put his 
hand over hers and pressed it gently. 

“I dare say,” Joan said smiling. She almost 
felt like a child tonight, she who had never known 
what childhood meant. A few miles away, the 
Hospital stood, tall, white and ocrene, covering 
with its cloak of stern mobility the tragedy 


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within, but it might have been at the other side 
of the world, for all she thought of it tonight, as 
she drank in eagerly her brief pleasures. 

Chang had never seen her in such a mood 
before, and he was more fascinated with her than 
ever. Mostly he looked at her with a vague sort 
of awe, afraid to touch her, now she was only 
warm and human. He vowed in his heart that 
this would happen more often after this. 

Lessing Jones, who had in other days been 
the one to see and appreciate these moods of hers, 
had tried to make them come more often also, but 
once back under the bands of duty, it was hard 
to break her away from them. She abandoned 
herself to her pleasures whole heartedly, while 
she had them, for her heart was starved for life’s 
pleasures and gayeties, but Jones who knew her 
best, knew that too much of life’s froth would 
soon tire her. Too long had she known tue 
greater things of life to exchange them for the 
driftwood of pleasure. 

It was that night, going home in his closed 
car, that Chang told her that he had been called 
to Washington. “I will probably get my dis- 
charge from the army while I am there,” he told 
her. “I have been loafing around in uniform long 
enough. Will you love me Joan, when I no longer 
wear the uniform to cover up my sins ?” Though 
he spoke lightly, there was a shade of anxious 
thought in his tone. 

Some of the gayety was washed out of her 
face as she looked up at him. “How long will 
you be away?” 


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He caught her hands in his and drew her to- 
wards him. “Not longer than I can help, sweet- 
heart. But you did not answer my question.” 

“You know I do not love your uniform, Lu, 
but you,’ she answered tenderly. 

With a quick gesture he swept her into his 
arms. “Joan, promise me you will let nothing 
come between us, while I am gone.” 

Her eyes widened at the passion in his tones. 
“What could come between us, dear,” she asked. 

“Oh, many things — Joan, oh God, I hate to 
leave you. Something tells me that you will not 
be the same when I come back. It will only be a 
few weeks at most, but I do not want to go, Joan.” 

There was a break in his tone, a wistfulness 
that touched her. “I do not want you to go, dear, 
but you must, of course, since the summons comes 
from your country. But it is not France, Lu. 
Think what it would be if you had, had to go back 
to France!” She made a little gesture of fear. 

He held her close to him. “You do love me, 
Joan — you must! You will not let anyone come 
between us. You will not let my absence change 
you in any way? Oh, my love, it is hard to go, 
for I love you so!” 

His fair passionate face was pressed against 
her soft, perfumed, jeweled hair; she could feel 
the beating of his heart beneath her ear. 

“Nothing can come between us dear. Surely 
you know my love is not a little thing to be thrust 
aside by trifles.” 

“Trifles — but Joan — I have not bee” a good 


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man — someone may come and tell you tumgs of 
me — ^wicked, cruel things I have done. You will 
not listen, Joan? You will remember that my 
love for you is the one good thing in my life, that 
I shall die, if I must give you up !” 

“Hush dear, no one can tell me things of you. 
Do I not love you, and does not love last always ? 
I could not listen to others — only my own heart 
and yours.” 

“You did not fall in love with the soldier, did 
you, Joan. The uniform, and the ribbons that I 
wore? Many girls do, all unknowing, dear. I 
will come back to you, a very ordinary man, dear 
one, with no khaki to cover up my sins, no ribbon 
to prove I am brave.” 

“How foolish you are, Lu. It is you I love. 
I am proud of your uniform and the ribbons on 
your breast, knowing what they stand for, but, 
dear, it is you that I love.” 

“Then promise me, that no matter what 
happens, you will not let anything but Death ever 
come between us. Promise me!” 

“Death?” she shuddered, but when she saw 
the pain and passion in his face, she answered 
quietly. “Nothing but death.” 

His arms relaxed a little, and some of the 
pain died out of his wine brown eyes. “Dear, I 
am foolish tonight, but the very thought of leav- 
ing you, even for a few short weeks, drives me 
mad. What would I do without you, Joan. Oh, 
my God, Joan, if I lost you now I” 

“Hush,” she said again, very softly, reaching 


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up her two arms to put them about his neck. 
“Hush, kiss me good night, Lu. Not farewell, 
nor goodbye, just goodnight. We will meet again 
some bright fair morning soon. See we are 
almost home now.” 

For a moment he crushed her in his arms, 
and pressed his burning lips on hers, then he re- 
leased her quickly, and opened the car door, for 
they were home. 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. 

The Pathway of the Weak. 

“Miss Murray, Miss Davis has fainted twice 
while on duty this morning, so I sent her to her 
room to rest. She seems far from well; should 
we have a staff doctor look at her?” Miss Cory 
said to Joan, one morning as she came into the 
office after breakfast. 

“Miss Davis ? She has not been looking well 
of late. Did she complain of feeling ill?” 

“No, she simply fainted at her work, but the 
first time she would not let the girls report it. 
VTien I found out about the second time, I sent 
her off duty.” 

“I will go over and see her. Miss Cory. Take 
someone from the ward to fill her place, please. 
We are so short of nurses. I suppose the girls 
are getting worn out. I will have to see what I 
can do about getting in some more graduates from 
outside.” Joan sighed a little wearily, and went 
out through the dining room into the Nurses’ 
Home. 

She paused on her way upstairs to the 
junior nurses’ apartments, to speak to the house- 
keeper, and then she went on to Mary Davis’ door. 

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163 


Just outside the room she paused, for the sound 
of smothered sobs came to her, and her light tap 
on the door remained unanswered. After waiting 
a moment, she turned the handle and went in. 
Mary lay on the bed, her face buried in the pillow, 
sobbing bitterly, and closing the door softly be- 
hind her, Joan went across the room and bent 
over her. 

“Miss Davis, what is the matter, are you ill ?” 

The girl started at the sound of her voice. It 
was evident she had not heard Joan enter, but 
her sobbing continued. 

Joan sat down on the edge of the bed and put 
her hand on the girl’s shaking shoulder. “What 
is it dear, will you tell me, please? Are you ill, 
or homesick, or tired — or are you in trouble?’’ 

Mary only sobbed all the harder at the ques- 
tions, and Joan looked at her for a moment or two 
in perplexity, then she shook her gently. 

“Miss Davis, answer me, what is the matter 
with; you, my dear?’’ 

“I — I can’t tell you.’’ 

“Are you ill?’’ 

“No.’’ 

“Are you tired or overworked?’’ 

“No.’’ 

“Then you must be in trouble, can’t you tell 
me what it is?’’ 

“No, Miss Murray, I can’t tell you.’’ 

“Now, Miss Davis, if you act this way, what 
can I do for you ? Try to think of me as a friend 
who will help you in any way that I can.’’ 


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“No one can help me now — there is nothing 
to do but go away and let me die,” and Mary 
broke into a fresh passion of sobs. 

“We can’t always die, when we have trouble, 
you know. Miss Davis. What is it, trouble at 
home — is someone sick or dead? Or have the 
girls been making it unpleasant for you?” 

“No, no, it is only myself. No one can help 
me now. I have been wicked, and now I must 
pay.” 

Joan Murray’s straight brows contracted in 
a frown, a new thought had come to her. 
“Wicked, what do you mean. Miss Davis?” 

“Oh, you would never understand. Miss 
Murray. You are so different from the others 
of us.” 

“At least I am a human being like the others. 
Suppose you try me and see. I will listen, and 
try very hard to understand. Come, be a good 
girl and turn around so that I can see you.” She 
pulled the girl up gently, until her tear-swollen 
face was visible. “Please tell me,” she said 
coaxingly, smoothing back the girl’s tumbled hair 
from her flushed face. 

Mary lay still, looking up at her, for a mo- 
ment or two. She was exhausted from crying, 
and seemed alm^^at too weary and hopeless to 
speak, so Joan sat beside her patiently, gently 
touching her hair, and in many ways instilling 
courage and confidence into the girl. She was re- 
warded after a time, for Mary reached up and 
curled her fingers around Joan’s little hand. It 


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165 


was with a little shock then that Joan noticed 
how thin and almost transparent were those 
fingers. 

“I am a wicked, wicked girl, Miss Murray. I 
have disgraced myself and the training school 
forever. You will never forgive me — no one 
will !” 

“What have you done, that is so wicked?” 
Joan asked in a low tone. 

Mary’s eyes dropped. “Don’t you know what 
I have done. Miss Murray ? Don’t you know what 
is the matter with me? It seems to me that 
every one must know — I am going to have a 
baby.” 

Joan sat perfectly still for a moment, and 
her face grew very white. She was trying to be 
calm, trying not to startle the confidence reach- 
ing out to her, trying to find words with which 
to meet it. Then suddenly she did the kindest, 
and wisest thing that she could have done, she 
put her arms out and around the girl with a little 
pitying cry. “Oh, you poor, poor child!” 

Mary’s slight reserve broke, before the un- 
expectedness of it. “Oh, Miss Murray, I never 
expected you to speak kindly to me again — or 
anyone!” she cried out. 

“You will never need kindness more than 
you do now, if this is true. Are you quite sure. 
Miss Davis.” 

“Yes, I am sure — only too sure. Miss Murray. 

“Then, oh my dear, why did you not tell me 
before?” 


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“I did not know — that is, I could not be sure. 
I would not heiicve it — I could not! Oh, Miss 
Murray, what shall I do? You think that I am 
bad — you will never understand that I did not 
mean to be. It did not seem bad — I loved him 
so 1” 

“But you surely knew it was wrong. Miss 
Davis.” 

“I don’t know. Miss Murray. When I came 
here first, I would have been sure, but now I do 
not know.” 

“Will he — the man — marry you dear?” 

Suddenly a mask fell over the girl’s drawn 
face. “No — ^no, he must never know of this!” 

“But my child, it is his right. He must be 
made to do what is right. He has sinned more 
than you — did he not promise to marry you?” 

Mary shook her head. “No, we never spoke 
of marriage. We just loved one another, that 
was all — at least I thought it was love. It just 
seemed that he was mine, and I his. Now I see 
things as they really were, it was not a beautiful 
and sacred kind of love, but a cheap commonplace 
thing that looked like it. He would have told me 
it was wrong, if he had really loved me, would 
he not. Miss Murray?” 

“I think so dear. Men do not wrong, and 
bring trouble upon the woman they love — a 
woman is more apt to do a thing like this for love, 
men do it for passion. Women give all they can 
— all that they have to give, for to them love 
means sacrifice and giving, while the man takes 


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— always takes. But now dear we must think of 
some way to help you. You have not told anyone 
have you ?” 

“No one but you, Miss Murray.” 

“Then do not tell anyone, or let them know 
that there is anything the matter with you. Just 
lie in bed for the remainder of the day, and rest, 
and I will have someone bring you over something 
to eat. You will try to eat some, won’t you? I 
will have to see what we can do. I shall have to 
consult one of the surgeons — which would you 
rather have?” 

“If it does not matter, I should like best to 
have Doctor Jones. He is so kind. I am afraid 
he will be very angry, because he brought me 
here, but I have known him since I was a little 
girl. Oh I suppose you will all hate me now — I 
do not deserve anything else.” 

“Hush, dear, no one will hate you. You have 
done wrong, but no one will suffer so mucn 
yourself. No one has any right to judge you or 
make you feel any worse than you do. Your own 
suffering, mentally and physically, will be a 
greater punishment than anyone can give. But 
I want you to trust me in this. We will try to 
have things arranged, so that no one will know 
excepting myself and one — perhaps two of the 
surgeons. Are you willing to leave all things to 
me, dear?” 

“Yes, oh yes. Miss Murray. You have been 
so good — I did not know that any one could be so 
good — only my father. Once a girl had a baby 


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at home, and father was so good to her. Oh 
daddy, daddy, why did I ever go away and leave 
you ?” 

A sudden bitterness rose in Joan Murray’s 
heart, against the man, against the school, against 
all revolving events that had lead to this, as she 
remembered the day wn^^n Lessing Jones had 
asked her to take in this girl as a probationer. 
Why had she felt as she did that day ? Why had 
she not yielded to the impulse that had come to 
her to refuse. Would the girl have been weak 
enough to fall anyway, without the influence of 
the training school?” 

“Do not say that, or think oi it now, my 
dear. Your father is the one we do not want to 
tell, is he not?” 

“Oh, Miss Murray — if we could keep him 
from knowing, I should not care if every one else 
knew. It would hurt him so — don’t you see — ^he 
would never say anything to me, but oh, it would 
break his heart. Oh, Daddy! Daddy!” 

“Then he must not know, dear. We will be 
careful of that. By and by you will go back to 
him, the same little girl if you try very hard. 
This will be a sad experience for you Mary. But 
you must get up from it a better girl than you 
have been and a stronger one. Some people fall, 
and never pick themselves up. You must be one 
of the others, who climb up again, to be better 
men and women than they have ever been be- 
fore.” 

“Then you do not think that I am all bad. 
Miss Murray?” 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


169 


“No, my dear, I hope that I am not so narrow 
as that. No one is all bad, my child, because the> 
stumble and fall once — perhaps twice. It is those 
who sin deuberately, knowing they are sinning, 
and regardless of that sin, that we condemn.” 

“But Miss Murray, since I came here, some- 
times I have wondered what sin really is. Is it 
doing something that we ourselves think is 
wrong? Or is it doing something that others 
think is wrong?” 

“I think Mary that every one has a different 
idea of sin. It is more wrong for us to do what 
we ourselves believe to be wrong. Other people 
do not have to suffer for our sins so much as we, 
sc they have no right to judge.” 

“Perhaps you are right. Miss Murray. But 
I know that there was never anyone so kind and 
good as you.” 

Joan rose to her feet, bent over and kissed 
the girl gently on the cheek. “I must leave you 
now, so try and rest, and eat what I send to you. 
I will come in again tonight to see you. Will you 
be a good girl and try not to worry?” 

Mary put her arms around Joan’s neck, and 
drew her face down for a moment. “I will do 
anything you say. Miss Murray,” she whispered, 
and then lay back on her pillow, and Joan, giving 
her one of her wonderful smiles, went out and left 
her alone. 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. 

The Way of Life. 

As a matter of course Joan Murray would 
have turned to Lessing Jones in this new problem, 
as she did in all others. Even if Mary Davis had 
chosen another of the surgeons, she would have 
gone to Jones also. Her mind was in a curious 
state as she called Jones up on the telephone and 
asked him to come to her. She was bitterly 
sorry for the girl, but something numbed her 
heart, and left her strangely calm. She felt a 
curious interest in this girl that she had never 
felt before, as though in some way she were re- 
sponsible for this thing. There was no suspicion 
in her mind, however, as to who the man was. 
Strangely enough she had not thought much of 
him after Mary had expressed her wish that he 
should not know. 

She looked up with a little crooked smile as 
Jones came into the office an hour later. “I want 
some more advice. Doctor Jones, that I probably 
will not take,” she said. “Bring your chair over 
here beside me, please, I do not want to talk very 
loud, as I have no wish to be overheard again dis- 
cussing another’s affairs.” 

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171 


“Who is in trouble this time?” Jones asked. 
He did not care so much who it was that was in 
trouble so long as it brought her to him for help. 
It was very sweet to feel her need of him. 

“Your little friend, Mary Davis, is in trouble 
— serious trouble, too, I am afraid.” 

It came to Jones with a little shock that he 
had seen Chang and Mary out riding together on 
one or more occasions. Was it possible that Joan 
had found out that they were in the habit of go- 
ing out together? But glancing at Joan’s face 
he knew that that was not it. Chang was 
not on the staff, anyway, so there were no staff 
rules attached to him, and Joan would not have 
spoken of it if it had been so, for it would have 
lain too near her own heart. 

“Well,” he said, almost sharply, breaking 
away from an unwelcome thought. “What has 
she done?” 

“Gotten herself into a serious mess, I am 
sorry to say. Oh, Less, I wonder what it is that 
gets into the girls! She was such an innocent 
little thing when she came here first.” 

“You don’t by any chance mean that she has 
gotten herself into trouble with a man, do you?” 
Jones asked, frowning. 

“Just that. Less.” 

“But, my God, Joan, this is awful! What- 
ever in the world made the girl such a fool ?” 

“I wonder — was she a fool — or only a weak 
little girl who loved a man too well? But now 
that she is in this trouble. Less, we must find 


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some way to help her. I thought perhaps you 
would know what to do better than I did.” 

“Well, there is only one way out of a mess 
like that. Only one thing that can be done for 
her, unless she wants to go on and have the 
child, and I do not suppose she does.” 

“Oh, no. Less, not that!” Joan cried out, 
throwing out her hands in a gesture of horror. 

“Why not? It will have to be done, Joan, for 
the girl’s sake as well as the school. Besides there 
is the old man, her father. I would not have him 
know this for the world, she is his idol, and it 
would break his heart. Besides I advised her to 
come here and train. She is the last one in the 
school I should have supposed this would hap- 
pen to.” 

“She is just the kind. Less. A girl Who 
knows nothing of life, nothing of men. She fell 
in love with this man — whoever he is — and went 
to her doom, without a thought. She never 
stopped to realize her folly until too late. She 
thought it was love, poor child, and that the man 
loved her. Now she sees that he never could 
have loved her when it is too late, and is too 
proud to expose him.” 

“Then you do not know who the man is?” 
An ugly suspicion had arisen in Jones’ mind, but 
he put it back out of his way, cursing himself for 
a suspicious fool. 

“No, she would not tell his name, at least 
she did not want to, so I did not press the mat- 
ter. If he could not — or would not help] her 


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there is no need of humiliating her more by ask- 
ing his name." 

“No, I suppose not. Nothing could be gained 
by it. She is better clear of him, if she begins 
to see how things stood. It is about the only 
way she has shown any wisdom in the matter. 
However, we will have to fix it up.” 

“Not in the way you said. Less. I cannot 
have that.” 

“But, Joan, what is the matter with you? 
It is not a nice thing, I know, but it has to be 
done. We have no time to be foolish over it. If 
were any one else — ^but, good Lord, Mary 
Davis? I feel responsible for the child. I have 
known her since she was a baby and it was me 
who advised her to come here in the first place.” 

“I cannot help that. Less. You will not do 
that. I will help in any other way. I am sur- 
prised that you — you whom I have always 
thought above that sort of thing — should speak 
of it to me, or suggest doing it.” 

Lessing Jones looked angry. “You are worse 
than Godwin, by the Lord, with his ideas of right 
and wrong, and his exaggerated belief in them.” 
He said in a vexed tone, more sharply than he had 
ever spoken to Joan before. A mad desire to 
laugh rose in Joan’s throat, as she looked up at 
him, although there was no laughter in her heart, 
nor in the situation. Over-strained nerves must 
have an outlet, and suddenly something had snap- 
ped in Joan. She did a thing very rare for her 
wonderful spirit, she put her face in her hands 
and broke into long drawn hysterical sobs. 


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In a moment Lessing Jones was beside her on 
his knees. “Joan, little Joan! My God, don’t cry! 
This miserable life is killing you! My little 
Joan !” 

In a moment she had gained control of her- 
self and lifted her head with a faint smile. “I 
get so weary. Less — and when things go like this, 
I get so discouraged. You — oh. Less you do not 
want to do this thing? You know it is not right.” 

“I shall never do anything that hurts you 
Joan. Oh, little girl if I could only help, but what 
can I do now?” he shook his head sadly, and his 
hands fell away from her and dropped to his 
side despondently. But the girl put out a little 
hand and held him near her. 

“Always be my friend Less, for indeed I can 
never do without your friendship. All my life 
you have helped me, do not leave me now.” 

“But dear, now that you are going to marry 
another man, he will do for you all that I have 
done and more. He will have the right to do 
all things for you, and you will not need me.” 

“Less, you are not going away?” 

“I have wanted to get away for a time, 
Joan. There are some new things I should like 
to look into. I should like to specialize in some- 
thing.” 

“But Less, how can I get on without you? 
I turn to you in everything — ^but what am I say- 
ing? Of course you want to go. The city is too 
small for your cleverness.” 

“I should be leaving you in the hands of the 


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176 


man you love, dear, if I go. I will have no right 
to help you then.” 

She gave him a keen look. “Less, you speak 
as though you meant to go, as though you were 
only waiting to see me married.” 

“Perhaps I am,” he said briefly. “Now for 
your plan for Mary Davis, since you refuse to 
consider mine.” 

“I was thinking Less, of sending her to Mrs. 
Ward, for the next six or eight months.” 

“Mrs. Ward?” 

“Don’t you remember Mrs. Ward, who stayed 
here so long after she had recovered. She has a 
beautiful old place in the country — we motored 
out to see her once, father and I.” 

“Yes, I remember, but what can she do for 
Mary?” 

“She is a splendid maternity murse, looks 
out for all the babies, in the country around 
where she lives, I believe. She would be willing 
to do almost anything for me, I think, and she 
adored you.” 

“But what about the baby?” 

“We could arrange about that afterwards, 
could we not? Mrs. Ward might be persuaded 
to keep it.” 

Jones shrugged his shoulders. “If you think 
so, I suppose it is all right. How are we going 
to keep it from the old man?” 

“We will manage some way. Less.” She 
looked at him anxiously, conscious that her plans 
did not find a great deal of favor in his eyes. 


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“Oh, dear, it isn’t on the guilty alone that the 
punishment falls. There is always some one to 
suffer when a girl is weak and falls like Mary. 
It may in the end teach the girl wisdom if she 
is properly handled, but it always means misery 
and pain for some one.” 

Mary, in her little white room, in the Nurses’ 
Home, lying across her narrow bed, with the sun- 
light pouring over her through the half open 
blind, was also thinking of her father. Her 
friends, she had very few either at home or here, 
she cared nothing for, but on her father would 
fall the bitter disgrace and heart ache. Although 
the room was warm, she shivered and drew the 
silk puff at the foot of the bed up over her, as 
her mind traveled far into the future, a strange 
future with which she had suddenly come face 
to face. Miss Murray had promised to help her, 
and keep the truth from her father, but after 
all what could Miss Murray do? She might go 
somewhere, and invent a soldier husband, as she 
had heard of girls doing — perhaps the baby 
would die. Her mind traveled back to the man 
— what would he do if he knew? Her thoughts 
wavered around him, — of telling him — of mar- 
riage. What would marriage with him be like 
— suddenly she shuddered over the thought. She 
remembered the last time she had seen him, he 
had not spoken — he had pretended not to see her, 
although she was almost sure he had — ^pride 
came to her rescue, he must never know. So the 
disconnected thoughts like figures in a dream 


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moved about in her head. Wisdom had come to 
her in those hours of knowledge and shame, and 
she saw clearly what sort of man she had been 
dealing with. Although she was very unsophis- 
ticated in the ways of the world, she began to 
realize just how he would view this episode, and 
what kind of help he would be likely to offer her. 

She fell to sobbing helplessly to herself 
again, until it came to her that tears were help- 
less things that could give her no relief, and she 
brushed them out of her eyes impatiently. Miss 
Murray had told her not to cry any more, and not 
to worry. Doctor Jones and she would make things 
right for her, if they could be made right. Her 
mind paused over Lessing Jones, for once her 
childish heart had been given to him. He had 
been the embodiment of all that was wonderful 
in man in her girlish dreams, yet she had for- 
gotten about him at sight of this other man. 

She got off her bed presently to get her- 
self a book, but a deadly faintness, a cold and in- 
finite weariness paralyzed her limbs, and she 
crept back shivering beneath the refuge of the 
puff to lie in sort of a doze until Joan coming 
into the room to see how she was, found her in a 
semi-conscious condition. 

Lessing Jones had scarcely reached his of- 
fice, when Joan’s call brought him swiftly back 
to the hospital. Mary Davis was very ill, so ill 
that he was obliged to call Doctor Gerry, and the 
girl was moved hastily into room Sixteen, which 
happened to be empty at the time. 


CHAPTER NINETEN. 

The Woman Must Pay. 

“Doctor Jones, what is the matter with Mary 
Davis? You and Doctor Gerry have given me 
evasive answers long enough. Now I should like 
to know the exact truth, if you please. I am not 
blind, you have been having your medicines made 
up outside, a thing that never happened in this 
Hospital before, but I know what you have been 
using just the same. You have made a mistake 
if you wish to deceive me in a drug, I have studied 
them too long, now I want to know just how seri- 
ously ill she is, and from what cause.” 

“The drugs we have been using are hard to 
obtain since the war, Joan. We knew that you 
did not have them in stock, so did not trouble 
you,” Jones said quietly. 

“I beg your pardon, my father brought some 
of those same drugs from Europe on his last 
trip, before the war broke out. They were using 
them there before we ever heard of them here, 
or of the disease for which they were used, for 
that matter. Father was going to make some 
experiments with them, but he died before he 
had a chance, and since then other surgeons in 
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this country have taken up the matter. Will you 
tell me now, what is the matter with Mary Davis ? 

“Well, Joan, I suppose we will have to tell 
you the truth, although I sincerely wish there 
was some other way out of it. Lord, girl, why 
can’t you let us fight this thing out alone? The 
girl was getting better when complications set in 
— unlooked for developments.” 

“Doctor Jones, I ask you to stop acting like 
a young house surgeon on his first case, and tell 
me the truth. I am not a child. Have I not 
learned as much, and gone as deeply into the 
study of drugs as you have yourself? If my 
father had lived to do his experiments, who would 
have watched them more closely than myself? 
You cannot tell me anything about these things 
that I do not already know, and you are treat- 
ing me as though I were a probationer. I am out 
of patience with you.” 

Jones signed and sat down. “Joan, you know 
that I have the greatest respect for your knowl- 
edge in all things, but now that your father is 
no longer here, we try to save you as much as 
we can. I know that you have an almost un- 
canny knowledge of drugs, but in this I cannot see 
where you can help.” 

“It is not necessary for you to try to save 
me in a thing like this, when one of my nurses 
is involved, and it happens in my own hospital. 
I would like very much to know why you and 
Doctor Gerry spend your time whispering in the 
corridor in so mysterious a manner, until you have 


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roused the interest of the whole staff over a case 
you are trying to keep secret.” 

“Have we been so bad as that, Joan?” 

“I am afraid you have. , It is noticeable, 
anyway. What is the matter?” 

“That is just what Gerry and I have been 
trying to be sure of during these last weeks. A 
few years ago a new disease became apparent 
in France. It had been brought there from the 
East, I believe. It was only a different form of 
an old disease — a disease only discussed in private 
clinics too long — it has lately been carried over 
to America in some manner, probably through 
the medium of the war, but we have not had many 
cases as yet, and are not very familiar with it, 
except in theory. As near as we can find out 
Mary is suffering from it. It differs from others 
of its kind in the fact that it can be cured if taken 
in time, with certain drugs, and again it may be 
in the system for years without one knowing it. 
Being hereditary it sometimes jumps a genera- 
tion. But in Mary’s case it has developed very 
quickly, and in her condition, and the strain un- 
der which she has been laboring, has brought 
complications which we were not prepared for.” 

“You have gone to some length to tell me 
what I have known for some time. My father 
was very interested in the matter when in Eu- 
rope, and he brought home many drugs to experi- 
ment with that he might be prepared to fight 
any evidence of the disease in this country. Poor 
father, he never lived to fulfill his promise of 


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great things. He left his hopes and plans with 
me, and I have kept them, for without his knowl- 
edge, gained from an old German scientist, I could 
not go far.” 

“Since you seem to know as much about these 
things as we do, our precautions in the matter 
seem foolish, and now perhaps you can help us.” 

“Just what did you mean a moment ago when 
you said that unexpected developments were not 
prepared for?” 

Jones made a little hopeless gesture. "We 
have done all we could — at least all that our 
knowledge will permit, and the girl is going down 
every day. Surely you can see that for your- 
self, Joan.” 

“Yes, I have seen it, only I have tried to shut 
my eyes to the fact. Will you come into the dis- 
pensary with me. Less, and see if there is any- 
thing there that you have not already tried. Each 
bottle is labeled, and the maximum dose marked.” 
She went into the little room that had once been 
Doctor Murray’s, and Jones followed her. One 
by one, they went over the marked phials, kept 
locked away in a separate drawer, but there was 
nothing among them that they had not already 
tried, or dared to try. A notebook put away with 
them was filled with formulas, but few of them 
were finished. The hand that had put them there 
would never be able to give to the world what the 
great brain had planned. 

“How helpless we are,” Joan said with a little 
sigh. “We can do so much and yet so little. If 


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my father were but here, he might save her, and 
we can only stand and watch her go, because we 
do not know. Oh Less, what can we do ?” 

“Nothing, I am afraid. We have done what 
we could, and perhaps whatever happens is for the 
best. She is paying the price for what she has 
done — a terrible price, the child and herself. And 
then they say we do not get punishment meeted 
out to us here for our sins — that our punishment 
waits in another world. I doubt it.” 

“But what of the man? Is he to go free — 
for it must have come from the man — Ah, life is 
very hard. Less, always a woman must be made 
to pay because of a man’s sins. Innocent lives 
must go down to the depth every day, because 
men have no longer honor in their loves. Why 
must it be so, I wonder? Why are not the guilty 
punished, too?” 

“The guilty get their punishment, too, Joan. 
The man gets his, when he falls in love with a 
good woman, and wants to marry her. He gets 
his punishment when the woman finds him out 
and shrinks from him. He gets his punishment 
when he sees the woman he loves die a lingering 
death, suffering because of his sins. When he 
sees his little children, sickly, puny and marked 
by the most terrible disease on earth. That is 
when he gets what he deserves, Joan dear. We 
may suffer ourselves, but the greatest hell that 
can be given to man, is to see those whom he loves 
best, stricken through his sin and folly.” 

“But some of them escape. Less.” 


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“No, I do not believe that there is one, who 
sooner or later does not come face to face with 
his sin. No matter how cleverly he has covered 
it up, eventually it will rise up to confront him. 
We do not know much of what is dealt out to man 
in Heaven or hell, but I do know that there is con- 
siderable hell dealt out to him on earth, for the 
miserable little things that he has done." 

“But this man. Less? Are we to let him es- 
cape this wrong, on the chance that he will get 
punished later?” 

Jones gave her a strange look. “I think his 
punishment is already descending upon him, Joan. 
But it is not for me to condemn, there will be 
others to do that." 

“Then you know who he is. Less?" 

Jones nodded, “I dare say I could put my hand 
upon him, if I wished, but I certainly have no 
wish to do so. After all it is not my business.” 

“But it is. Less. Don’t you see that he is a 
menace to the country. You as a surgeon, fight- 
ing these things, should make it your business. 
But you will always shield the man. You men are 
all alike, you trust to Providence to punish the 
man, but you stand between him and Providence 
as long as you can. Oh, you make me tired — 
sometimes I am tempted to think you better than 
other men. Less, but you are all alike.” 

“Thank you for the “sometimes," Joan. I 
am afraid you are right, I do not rank up very 
high.” He sighed a little wearily, but he smiled 
on her as he spoke. 


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“Oh, Less, you are good, only I get so out 
of patience sometimes, at everything, and I say 
these things to you. I know how hard you try 
to help me, and I am a thankless little wretch. 
What would I do without you, I wonder?” 

“I hope you will always have me to come to 
in trouble, Joan. I would like you to promise 
me, dear, that even if you think I could not help 
much, you will come to me with your worries.” 
Perhaps he was thinking of a time when she would 
come upon a trouble with which no one could help 
her. Joan had ever the troubles of others in her 
mind, but what would she do when trouble de- 
scended upon herself like a black cloud. Would 
she stand firm as she had always stood, or would 
she break? He was afraid, for though Joan sel- 
dom spoke of herself, he knew that she felt things 
intensely. So he prayed that he might be there 
to help as well as he could when the time came. 
She must know soon, he told himself, though he 
would never be the one to tell her. If Mary Davis 
died, and most assuredly unless a miracle hap- 
pened she would, Joan would surely find out. It 
did not occur to Jones that it perhaps was his 
duty to tell her himself, for his strange code never 
betrayed a friend, no matter to what depth that 
sin might bring him. He wondered if in the end 
Chang would have the courage to tell her himself, 
but he doubted it. Chang was a brave man 
physically, no man in the country had a more 
brilliant record for bravery, yet in every way the 
man had proven himself a moral coward. He had 
never yet, to Jones’ knowledge, been able to stand 


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up and face any wrong he had done. Yet in spite 
of all this, Jones loved Chang with a love that 
never broke under the strain Chang had long put 
upon it. 

But the truth came to Joan much sooner 
than Jones expected, and from an entirely dif- 
ferent source. 


CHAPTER TWENTY. 


Not Afraid. 

One quiet afternoon Joan went in to sit with 
Mary. She spent a great deal of her time in the 
room with the girl, and Mary grew to watch 
for her coming. Joan had grown to like those 
quiet hours and had grown very fond of the girl 
whose young life was slowly but surely fading out. 
Joan knew that the time would not be long before 
she would have to tell Mary that she would never 
recover, but she put off the time as long as she 
could. She knew too that soon the girl’s father 
would have to be told and sent for and that too, 
she wished to leave as long as possible, for she 
did not want the old doctor to see too much, for 
the sake of the long years when he must do with- 
out the darling of his heart. Mary had told her 
much of her home life, in those long quiet chats 
they had together. She seemed to like to talk 
of the country where she had spent the greater 
part of her life. “I thought that when I finished 
my training I would go back to it, and things would 
be the same again as they used to be, except- 
ing that I should know more, and be better able to 
help my father. But now I can see that even if this 
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had never happened, things would never have been 
the same again. The training school is different 
from what I pictured it — I think it is different 
from what anyone pictures — and after we have 
spent some time in it we can never go back to what 
we were before. Do you remember, Miss Murray, 
when I first came here, you talked to me? You 
said that no matter what we thought when we 
entered the school, it gave to us something that 
we had never had before, and took something 
away. It gathered around us a thousand tiny 
threads that we can never break. I did not under- 
stand you then, but I think that now I know what 
you meant, and you see I did not forget. 

“What is it the school takes away. Miss Mur- 
ray, I have often thought as I lay here. It seems 
to be an indefinite something that is hard to put 
into words without saying too much or too little. 
It takes away some of the glory of life. It seems 
to rub off some of the outside glitter, the gold 
dust that makes life worth while.” 

“I am afraid you are right, Mary dear. It 
takes away our beautiful ideals, and leaves us 
with naked facts. Life is no longer beautiful 
when it has rubbed away the gold dust of our 
idols,” Joan said gently. 

“You said that some day I would see the 
beauty of sacrifice, and the uselessness of it, too. 
Do you think that sacrifice is ever useless Miss 
Murray ?” 

“Only too often, my dear. We sacrifice year 
after year to duty, to love, to the selfish whims 


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of others, and yet in the end we seem to have 
done no good. We can at least say that we have 
tried, if there is any satisfaction in that.” 

“But you are so good. Miss Murray. Some- 
times I wonder at you. No matter what happens, 
you are always the same, always taking things as 
a matter of course, and yet helping some one all 
the time. You pretend to be so very hard, and 
often you deceive people into thinking that you 
are.” 

“I am not good, Mary, and I am growing 
very hard. Life has never shown me anything 
but hardness. Why, Mary dear, when you were 
a little girl playing with dolls, and running to 
meet your father when he came home, I was be- 
ing taught the rules of hospital life. I was scarcely 
older than you, yet I was watching surgical 
operations, and learning the name of instru- 
ments. The only doll I ever had had a skeleton 
inside so that I could take it apart to learn the 
bones. I was never allowed to call my father 
anything but Doctor Murray — if I had called 
him Daddy I would probably have been punished 
— but no one would ever have been tempted to 
call him daddy. My dear, if I had had your 
home, and a dear father like yours, nothing 
would ever have tempted me to leave him.” 

“But, Miss Murray, no one who knew you 
would ever call you hard. You seem so wonder- 
ful to me, since I have known you. You never 
think of the sin people commit, only of how you 
can help them. Do you know that had I been 
in any other training school I should have been 


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turned out into the street to get along the best 
way that I could.” 

“Why Mary, what do you know of other 
training schools? You told me you knew noth- 
ing of them when you came here.” 

“I didn’t, but I have learned a lot about them 
since then. One of the girls has a friend training 
at the N — Hospital. The rules there are not so 
strict as they are here, but if any one disobeys 
a rule, she gets discharged. One of the girls there 
got into trouble — like I did, and Miss Murray, 
when the superintendent found out about it, she 
sent her out of the hospital, and forbade any of 
the girls having anything to do with her. One of 
the girls who had a little money tried to help her, 
for she had no place to go, but when she was 
found out, she was insulted and turned from the 
school also. Think how different you have been.” 

“But dear, the superintendent at N — is only 
hired by the staff and has to do as they say. I 
do not have to do that.” 

“Staff or no staff. Miss Murray, you would 
not have done that. Once I thought all superin- 
tendents must be alike, but you are different. 
Think how you come to me day after day, to sit 
with me and talk, when you might be doing some- 
thing else. You could have helped me, but you 
did not stop at that, you came and were my 
friend. You think that I do not notice these 
things, but often I lie here and think of them, 
and how good you have been. When I first found 
out how wrong I had been, I thought there was 


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no goodness, or kindness left in the world, that 
every one was cold and hard, and no one ever 
happy. But you have taught me that there are 
still good people. Do you know that is the first 
thing I began to realize when I came here — ^how 
few people are really happy. Sometimes it seems 
that almost no one is happy.” 

“I am afraid that happiness is almost a lost 
art in our little world, Mary. The life we see 
does not show us much of joy. We see pain open 
up people’s hearts and souls, and we find only too 
often that each heart has its own bleeding wound, 
and each soul hides some deep-lying bitterness.” 

“You told me once that if I were strong 
enough, I should rise above the sordid unloveliness 
of this life, but I was not strong enough and I 
fell. Was it me, I wonder — or life? Do we just 
drift, helpless beings on a river of Fate, or do 
we rule our own destinies. Miss Murray?” 

“I do not think we do either, dear. Certainly 
the river of Fate carries us along with a swift 
current through the lands of Circumstance but 
I think we ourselves help to make our way as we 
go along. Life is too big a thing for us to under- 
stand Mary, we have to do the best we can and 
not ask too many questions. Questions never 
get us anywhere, for there is never anyone able 
to answer, and we only grow unhappy wonder- 
ing.” 

They were silent for a time, both thinking, 
and then to Joan’s intense surprise Mary spoke 
quietly of dying. “Miss Murray, I am going to 


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die, am I not? Do not look so startled, I have 
known it for a long time — at least it seems a long 
time, lying here — but I think that I knew it be- 
fore you did.” 

“Who told you, Mary?” 

“No one told me, it just came to me as things 
do sometimes. One day I was allowed to sit up 
on a chair, and Doctor Jones said soon I would 
be going home — Doctor Less is good, too. Miss 
Murray, he never seemed to blame me for what 
I had done, although I know I must have hurt him 
very much, for he trusted me, and wanted me to 
become a good nurse. The next day I did not get 
up, or the next. By and by. Doctor Less stopped 
speaking about me going home. Then one day 
I asked him if I were getting better, and he did 
not answer, but went almost directly out of the 
room, although I was quite sure he heard me. 
One sees these things very plainly, when; one lies 
still all day and watches and thinks. Now I 
know why a girl who has been sick a lot makes 
a better nurse, she realizes how sharpened the 
senses become, when one lies still all day.” 

“Are you afraid, Mary?” 

“No, somehow, I am not even sorry. Only 
for my father, I should not care a great deal. I 
am not very old, and I have not seen much of 
life, but I have seen enough to know, that there 
is not a great deal in it to regret. I have been 
happy and comfortable here, but some night if I 
went to sleep knowing I would never wake up, I 
would not be sorry. Sometimes I should like to 


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see my old home, just to touch each dear old ob- 
ject again — to watch once more the sun linger- 
ing in the garden after all else was in shadow, or 
watch for my father by the window as I used. 
But then again, perhaps I should not be so sat- 
isfied to go, if I were there.” 

“If you think, dear, that you would be hap- 
pier in your home, we will see if it is possible to 
move you there.” 

For a moment Mary’s eyes brightened, but 
she shook her head. “No, I think that I am hap- 
pier here. Miss Murray. I should like to see my 
father again, but please, not until the very last. 
He would feel badly to see me like this, and not 
be able to do anything for me, so I would rather 
he did not know for a time. There is no need of 
making those we love suffer, is there?” 

“But Mary, dear, if there is anything you 
want, we will try to get it for you.” 

For a moment Mary was silent, her blue eyes 
fixed on space, eyes that had grown different in 
these last months, they were no longer the inno- 
cent eyes of a child, they were no longer the sad 
and questioning eyes of the betrayed, they were 
calm and peaceful eyes, like those that had looked 
long upon life’s falacies, and had learned to gaze 
beyond — eyes of the very old, who calmly await 
death. 

“There is nothing that you have left undone 
for my comfort. Miss Murray,” she said, looking 
around the room filled with flowers, in spite of 
the winter weather. “You think of every little 


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thing that would make me happy. Not everyone 
dies with such a kind friend near. I will never be 
able to thank you for all you have done — ^never be 
able to do anything for you in return — ^but you 
do not do things for thanks, do you? You said 
that sacrifice was often made for nthing, but this 
one on your part has done me much good.” 

“But Mary, what of the man, who has done 
this thing. Can you forgive him in your heart?” 

A faint flush stained the wasted face for a 
moment. “It seems strange that I do not think 
of him very much. He seems to be but a part of 
the past, and somehow the past seems a long, 
long way behind. When I found that he did not 
love me, and had only used me for his own pleas- 
ure, I resolved to forget him. Now that I am 
going to die, what does it matter, ansnvay? He 
probably will never know of this, or that it was 
his fault, never miss me out of his daily life.” 

“Then you do not want to see him again?” 

“No, I should rather remember him as I saw 
him last, and let him remember me so, if he ever 
thinks of me.” She closed her eyes for a moment 
and Joan wondered if she were looking into the 
past. “He would not think me much of a sport 
if I should drag him into this, and he does hate 
anyone who is not a good sport. I did not know 
that until it was too late.” 

“But Mary, don’t you see, dear, that for the 
sake of others, it is your right to expose him. Not 
so much to punish him, as to save others from 
this.” 

“But Miss Murray, you must not blame him 


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too much. It was not all his fault. Somehow he 
is a man that women always seem to love, and 
perhaps they have spoiled him. He never asked 
me for what I would not give, he did not make 
promises. I was weak, and did not think of any- 
thing but my love for him. No, he was not all 
to blame.” 

Joan sat silent, something was forming in 
her heart and brain, a cold hand was closing over 
her soul. It had not been long since in this very 
room, another wronged woman had said almost 
the same of a man. Was it the same man? And 
— ^who was he? Lessing Jones knew in both cases 
— ^he had given her the same answer both times 
she had asked him. Why did he shield the man? 
Why was he hiding this thing from her?” 

“Mary,” she said suddenly. “Are you talking 
of one of the staff, or of one of the doctors who 
come here with the privileges of the staff? Mary, 
even if this will never do any good, I want to know 
who it is. I want to know if this man is being 
shielded among us, ready to prey upon other in- 
nocent lives at will.” 

Mary gave a little startled cry at sight of 
Joan’s white face, and something came into 
Mary’s mind also, that had not entered it since 
she had been ill. Had it been true after all, what 
the girls had whispered, that Miss Murray was 
engaged to marry Doctor Chang ? Was this won- 
derful woman whom she had grown to love so 
dearly, standing on the edge of the precipice over 
which her own feet had already slipped? Was 
Miss Murray in danger? Mary was not very wise. 


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but long hours on her back had made some things 
clear to her. She did not know what was the 
matter with her — or why she must die, but she 
did know that in some way the man was to blame. 
If she remained silent would her dear friend have 
to suffer and come to this? She held out her 
hands in a little pleading gesture, “Oh, Miss Mur- 
ray, dear, don’t look so white — Doctor Jones will 
tell you, for he knows— if he thinks it right that 
you should know, he will tell you the truth — go 
to him.” 

Joan had recovered herself, but she was still 
very white — the cold hand had already closed over 
her heart and soul. It had come to her suddenly, 
as some things come — we ignore them as long as 
we can, then suddenly our eyes are opened and 
we see clearly — so clearly that it seems we must 
have always known. There was no need for Mary 
to speak now — ^no need to go to Lessing Jones. 

She got up and bending over Mary, kissed 
her gently and turned away. “I think that I al- 
ready know, Mary dear. Forgive me for trying 
to find out your secret. Try to think that I did 
it for the best,” and before Mary could answer, 
she had left the room. 


CHAPTER 21. 

A Heart to Heart Talk. 

It was that night as it happened that Jones 
did not go to the Hospital for his nightly visit, as 
was his habit. He had heard that Chang had re- 
turned to the City, and he hoped to catch him for 
a talk before he went to the Hospital to see Joan. 

“Hello, Jones, I’m mighty glad you dropped 
in,” Chang said as he shook hands. He was in 
dressing gown and slippers and got up from a 
couch when his man showed Jones into the room. 
“Just get back from the Hospital? I got into 
town at five, and rang up at once, but it seems 
they are busy this evening, and I could not get 
Joan — am not to have a word with her until the 
morning. It struck me as rather a cool reception, 
after nearly two months’ absence, so I did not 
press the matter.” It was evident that Chang 
was somewhat peeved. 

Jones gave him a keen glance, it struck him 
as strange, too, that Joan had refused to see 
Chang that night, however, he only said, “I made 
my last call for the day early in the afternoon. I 
think they are pretty busy tonight. Gerry brought 
in a bad accident case — one of his favorites, to 
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putter over all night. They asked me to assist, 
but I want some sleep, so passed the job over to 
Mac. I heard you were home, so dropped in for 
a chat.” 

“Glad you did, Jones — here take this chair, it 
is more comfortable — and I will get something to 
drink — my man has gone.” He pulled a great 
leather chair in front of the grate, and Jones 
stretched his long length in it as Chang moved 
about the room. 

“You certainly are a lazy beggar, Chang — 
how do you expect to work in a place like this, 
where every chair makes a fellow ready to drop 
off to sleep? When do you propose to don civies 
and get to work like the rest of we poor devils?” 

Chang shrugged. “Uniform comes off tomor- 
row, but don’t know when I will settle down to 
work. Working here will be somewhat tame after 
France.” 

“I dare say it will,” Jones said thoughtfully. 
He was not thinking about what he was saying. 
He was wondering how he was going to begin on 
the subject he had come here to discuss with 
Chang. 

Chang came over presently and threw him- 
self into a chair near. “Gad, I do hate an even- 
ing alone. You are a godsend this beast of a 
night.” 

Jones looked at him, and it struck him that 
Chang did not look well. There was a certain 
nervous tension about him, a restlessness that 
was not healthy. “You may think that another 
party had something to do with my coming, whose 


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name we will not mention, before the evening is 
over, Chang. I did not come exactly for pleas- 
ure, old man — and I do not know as we could call 
it business,” Jones shrugged his shoulders, “I do 
hate like the devil to interfere in a man’s affairs, 
but some times there seems to be nothing else 
to do. I have rubbed up against some of yours, 
Chang, and I rather think it is time you knew 
about them.” 

“What is it? I know by your tone that it is 
rather serious. I never permit anyone to inter- 
fere in my affairs, Jones, and I think you know it, 
but I know that unless the case were desperate 
you would not do so. Do you mean by any chance 
that Joan has found out something about me?” 

“If she has not already she must know soon. 
Remember, Chang, if she never found out, I 
should not be the one to tell her. But the time 
has come when you must go to her yourself. It 
will be easier for her to hear things from your 
lips, and she will be more likely to forgive.” 

“Go to Joan with a detailed outline of the rot- 
ten things I have done ? Not on your life, Lessing 
Jones! I could not do it.” 

“And yet you went out under heavy shell fire 
and brought in three wounded men to safety — 
not one trip, but three — in France last year.” 

“Who told you that ? It was nothing. Heav- 
ens, I would face the whole German army, before 
I would face Joan with all the little miserable 
things I have done !” 

“I don’t understand you, Chang. You have 
more physical courage than any man I ever met, 


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yet when it comes to moral courage, you fall down 
every time.” 

“Physical courage, as you call it, is only a bit 
of nerve, there is a lot of difference between nerve 
and courage, man. However, what is it you have 
to say? Let it out of your system, and give me 
a chance to see what I am up against now.” 

“Do you remember Mary Davis?” 

“Never heard of her, to my knowledge, 
Jones.” 

“Chang, for the love of God, you have been 
taking Mary Davis out riding all summer!” 

“I protest, Jones, I never heard of the girl 
in my life — you are getting me mixed with some- 
one else. Don’t put some one else’s sin on me 
for God knows I have enough of my own to answer 
for.” 

“Chang — I wish to the Lord it was some 
one else’s sin — for Heaven’s sake, man, you have 
been driving Mary Davis about all summer in 
your car. She is the young nurse you took a 
fancy to awhile ago. If you were not such a 
wonderful soldier, Chang, I should feel like break- 
ing your neck, in spite of our lifelong friendship, 
but I can’t find it in my heart to chastise a man 
who has done for his country what you have.” 

“Oh, for the Lord’s sake, leave my country 
out of this; I am not a soldier now, and never 
will be again, worse luck. If you feel like break- 
ing my neck, I must deserve it, Jones, for you 
are not a fighting man; go ahead and do it — but 
tell me first about this Mary Davis — or whatever 
her name is.” 


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“You know who I mean, don’t you ?” 

“Yes.” 

“I suppose you did not know that you got 
her into trouble, before you went away? She 
says that you did not, anyway.” 

Chang got up and took a stand before the 
open grate, lighting a cigarette. “What kind of 
trouble ?” 

“You left the girl pregnant.” 

“Good God!” 

“Then you did not know? I am glad of that, 
Chang. I did not think you could have known.” 

“Where is she now?” 

“At the Hospital. No one would have known 
so soon, but the girl took sick, and she told Joan. 
We hushed the thing up, and I do not believe 
that anyone in the school guessed the truth as to 
what the matter was.” 

“She lost the baby?” 

“Yes.” 

“Does Joan know?” 

“Of course she knows — everything but who 
the man was. She may know that by now. I 
have not seen her since early in the day.” 

“If she did not know before, how could she 
find out? If the girl did not tell her at first, 
why should she do so now?” 

“The girl will never tell on you, Chang. She 
has been rather game about the whole thing. I 
think on the whole, she had more courage than 
you.” 

“I dare say, that would not be saying much. 
But, Jones, if Joan finds this out, and will not 


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forgive me, I am done.” Chang spoke very 
quietly, but something in his white face told Jones 
that what he said was true. 

“You really love Joan, Chang?” 

“I told you once, Jones, that I did. Joan is 
the only woman I have ever loved.” 

“Then why don’t you act like a man? Why, 
Chang, if this had happened before you met Joan, 
there might have been some excuse, but even 
your love for Joan could not keep you decent.” 

“I know, Jones, but you can never under- 
stand, because you are not my kind. Don’t you 
know that every pretty woman is a temptation to 
me, even my love for Joan cannot help me in that. 
My God, man, do you know what it is to fight a 
devil within you all the time, and never know 
when that devil is going to overrule you? If 
Joan loves me enough to overlook my greatest sin, 
and try to understand, perhaps some day she can 
make a man of me. Remember, there is nothing 
good in me but my love for her, and even that 
cannot save me from myself, alone.” 

“But, Chang, you cannot expect even a 
woman like Joan to overlook everything.” 

“No, I suppose not — ^but Jones, Joan knows 
how bad I am.” 

“I don’t doubt, Chang, that she would for- 
give you for a great many things, but there is 
one thing that I am afraid that, broad-minded 
as Joan is, she will find hard to overlook, and 
that is the fact that Mary Davis is dying through 
your fault.” 

“Dying?” 


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“Yes, dying. She seemed to recover from 
her illness after the first, then gradually she 
began to go down, until nothing we can do can 
save her. She will not live more than a few 
weeks longer.” 

“But what ails the girl ?” 

“That, Chang, is a question for you, and you 
alone to answer. That is what I came here to 
ask you tonight. You should know better than 
any of us, what is wrong with her — why she must 
die.” Jones, too, rose to his feet, and his face 
had grown hard and stern. The eyes that looked 
into Chang’s were bitterly accusing. 

Chang stood staring at him as though he 
had suddenly gone mad. His cigarette fell from 
his nerveless fingers and lay a bright spot on 
the rug at his feet, until Jones reached down 
and picked it up and threw it into the grate. 

Then suddenly Chang put out his hands 
gropingly, like a man suddenly stricken. “My 

God Jones not that not that?” and 

sinking into a chair he covered his face with his 
hands. 

Jones came and laid a hand on his shoulder. 
“Chang,” he said in a low tone, “Tell me, you did 
not know?” 

“Jones, before God, I did not know — I never 
thought of it. Do you think that I would have 
asked the woman I loved to be my wife, if I had 
known ? Jones, you as my friend could not think 
that! I may be rotten to the core, but I am not 
so rotten as that ! But, Jones, are you sure ?” 

“Only too sure, Chang, a result I am afraid. 


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203 


of indiscretions in France, where the disease is 
prevalent. Chang, I had rather have been shot, 
than tell you this, but it had to be done. I did 
not believe you knew, yet I wonder that you have 
not been afraid of it, I knew you were not so vile 
as to ask a woman to be your wife if you knew. 
But don’t you see how hard it will be for Joan to 
forgive you? And why she must know at once.” 

“I will go away and never see her again, 
Jones. It is the only thing I can do now, for 
her.” 

"No, Chang, you cannot do that. It would 
not be fair to Joan; remember that no matter 
what you have done, Joan loves you, and love 
overlooks many things. Go to her and tell her 
the truth — ^keep nothing from her. Purge your 
soul of all its sins, by a confession, and then ask 
her to forgive. Tell her that this thing can be 
cured in time, and give her a chance to help you. 
Let her face this thing with you, and I think I 
know Joan well enough to know that she will 
not fail you now, when you need her most. Go 
away from her for a time, and show her that 
you have it in you to be a man. Perhaps in time 
things will come out right.” 

“You are a good friend, Jones, but things can 
never be made right now. Even now you are 
arguing against your better judgment. I would 
not ask her to take me back after this. Oh, 
there is no doubt that I deserve all I am getting, 
no one ever escapes in this world, and I had no 
more reason to expect to get by than others. 
Tell me, does Mary know she is going to die?” 


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“She knows, yes, and seems rather brave 
about it, too, more than you would suppose, know- 
ing the girl. Poor kid, her little battle here has 
been short, but she seems to have learned a lot 
of the philosophy of life during the time. If I 
had not known that you were the only man she 
had ever gone out with, I would never have learned 
this from her lips.” 

“Poor little kid, I did not mean her any harm. 
She was an innocent child, not fit to knock about 
this beast of a place. I did not think. Less, I 
never do until it is too late.” 

“No, I know you did not mean to hurt her, 
Chang. Perhaps it was not all your fault after 
all. Her kind is a menace to men like you, as 
much as you are a menace to her kind — a combi- 
nation of ignorance and innocence. But it is a 
pretty hard thing — ^two lives — she has paid a 
heavy price for her folly. And there is the old 
man, her father — I do not know how I shall face 
him, for he must read the truth in our guilty 
faces.” 

“A big price — yes, Jones, but not so great a 
price as I have paid, for I have lost more than 
life; I have lost the woman I loved — and I have 
lost my soul.” 

“Not that, Chang. Brace up and be a man.” 
Jones went over to the table and poured a drink 
of brandy into a glass, and passed it to Chang. 

“Jones, do you think for one moment, that 
I am going to face Joan after this? Why, man, 
I would no more go to her now than I would fly 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


205 


around the world in the new plane they are build- 
ing for the purpose.” 

“Knowing you, I have no doubt that you 
would do such a thing, so I have some hopes of 
you interviewing Joan.” 

Chang took a turn across the room. “I say, 
Jones, will you excuse me for the remainder of 
the evening. If I stay in the house another min- 
ute, I will choke. I think I will go for a run in 
my car.” 

“But, Chang, it is raining like blazes, and 
the roads are a glare of ice — take me along with 
you if you must go.” 

Chang laughed a mirthless laugh. “Good old 
Jones — talk of courage — no, Jones, if you value 
your neck, let me go alone; I must fight things 
out by myself. If I get back at any decent hour, 
maybe I will go in to see Joan, after all.” 

Jones laid a hand on his arm, “Promise me 
one thing, Chang, that you will keep away from 
the River Road.” 

“Oh, all right. Anything to satisfy you. 
Less,” and with that Jones was obliged to be con- 
tent. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. 

Out of the Storm. 

At last Joan was alone. From the time she 
had left Mary’s room she had not had a moment 
to herself. Perhaps it was as well, for although 
her heart was cold and heavy in her breast, she 
had no time for connected thought. Unlike other 
girls she could not cry, too long had her emotions 
been hardened, too long had she looked upon life’s 
tragedies impersonally, until even her own seemed 
so to her. Sitting there alone among the ruins of 
her hopes and her love, she was a strange little 
figure of tragedy herself, so small and white and 
still. 

By and by she got up and changed her uni- 
form for a soft silk negligee, then curled herself 
up in a big chair by the fire, a lonely little figure, 
body bent forward, chin in hand, her great eyes 
fixed on the flickering flames, motionless save 
for the swinging of one tiny slippered foot. 

The door opened suddenly without a knock, 
and Lu Chang stood there framed in it before her. 
He wore a mud-bespattered trench coat, and car- 
ried cap and gloves in his hand. His face was 
white and set, his eyes heavy and bloodshot, and in 
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207 


them was a weary, haggard look, that had never 
dulled those brilliant eyes before. Altogether 
he presented a most disreputable appearance, 
strangely different from the debonnair Chang she 
had always known. He closed the door behind 
him, and stepped into the room, and stood leaning 
against it wearily, waiting for her to speak. 

She had looked up startled at his entrance, 
and now she sat still staring at him, and only 
the beating of her heart stirred the silk at her 
breast. Then suddenly she put out both her 
hands to him, and spoke much as she might have 
done to a naughty child, “Lu, come here.”' 

With a quick gesture he threw cap and gloves 
on a nearby chair, and crossed the room to where 
she sat, and dropping on his knees beside her he 
buried his wheat gold head on her knee. Neither 
spoke for a time, only her fingers strayed with 
wistful tenderness through the tumbled locks of 
his hair, and once a tear rolled down her white 
cheek and fell beside her hand. God only knew 
how much she had loved him, and how unworthy 
he had proven himself of that love. 

When the golden silence had in a measure 
quieted the storm in both aching, throbbing 
hearts, he spoke without lifting his head from its 
resting place on her knee. “Joan, I am not going 
to ask you to forgive me — it is too late— even your 
forgiveness could not save me now, that I have 
gone so far and sunk so low. I cannot even speak 
to you of love — you would laugh at the mockery, 
and would not believe me. But only believe — ^try 
to believe that I did not know.” He raised his 


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face for a moment. “Joan I did not know about 

Mary Davis, or the other. I have no excuse 

to offer you, only that — I did not know — I did not 
mean to harm you in any way. Tell me you be- 
lieve me, dear.” 

The muscles of her heart ceased to contract 
for a moment, even the beating seemed suspended 
as she listened to his voice again, yet all she said 
was, “I know you did not know, dear.” 

“I am going away, Joan, where you will never 
see me again, or hear of me, that is the only 
thing that I can do for you now. I will try to 
do right, but how I will get on without your love, 
now that I have known it, I do not know. God 
knows there is nothing left in life for me without 
you — you are the only true, pure thing that I 
have ever known, yet I was too rotten to treat 
you as I should, and so I have lost the one thing 
in my life that was worth while.” 

She bent her head nearer to him, and the 
love in her beautiful eyes enveloped him like a 
flame of wistful glow, but she knew the very 
uselessness of the thing she wished to do — throw 
herself a weary child into the shelter of his arms. 
Too well she knew that the arms that were to 
hold her against the world were weak and made 
of clay. Her idol had fallen, and only the shell 
remained. She had put all the ideals and faith 
and dreams that life had left her into her love for 
him, all that was best in her, burned on the altar 
of her love. She had built up an idol and wor- 
shiped it, but now it had crumpled into dust at 
her feet. 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


209 


Yet even now the strength of her courage was 
great, and hope in her heart died hard. Faith 
had long since gone, and now in the graveyard of 
her heart she must place Trust and Hope by its 
side. Yet Love, drooping and hurt, stayed on with 
Pain, saving her heart from grim Despair. 

“Is there anything that I can do for you, 
dear?” 

“No, there is nothing that you can do for 
me now, Joan — you gave me kindness, happiness 
and love, and what have I given you in return? — 
nothing but unhappiness, unfaithfulness, and 
pain. I have hurt you and killed your love, and 
now you are free. Some day some other man 
will give to you the love that is worth while.” 

“You have not killed my love, Lu,” she said 
gently. “Nothing ever kills love, it lives on until 
death stops our heart beats, and takes away our 
thoughts. I forgive you, Lu — that is another 
thing about love, it always forgives. But I had 
no right to have love in my life, and now I have 
been punished for forsaking my trust and loving 
you too well. Long before I was born, my father 
offered up a sacrifice to his God, Ambition, and 
I was that sacrifice. He laid me a tiny babe in 
the arms of that god, and they closed around me, 
crushing out my rights for a life like other girls, 
crushing my dreams and my soul. A sacrifice 
on the altar of the tragedies of the world, I have 
been made, and now that the fire of his ambition 
is gone, I am left but the charred remains of what 
once was glorious life.” 

“Poor little girl — what a life — and instead 


210 


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of my love helping you, it has only made you suf- 
fer the more. What can I do to atone ? Nothing, 
for there is nothing in me worthy of atonement. 
The only thing is for me to leave you forever.” 

She was silent for a moment, then she said 
softly. “You will be careful for my sake, dear; 
remember no matter where you are my heart will 
be with you. Try to make life worth while again. 
You cannot say that there has been nothing worth 
while in your life, after what you did for your 
country in France. Try to make the remainder 
of your life, like the time you spent there, and 
no one can say that you are not worthy in every 
way. Even if we must part, dear, do this for 
my sake.” 

“I will try, Joan, but I do not know ; I do not 
believe it is in me. If I could not do so with your 
love to help me, it is pretty useless to expect 
anything from me when I have not that love. 
What I did in France did not require courage, 
but nerve. Nerve does not make men, always, 
it makes soldiers. Courage means facing the 
things we dread, that we fear, and going through 
them, no matter what happens. Nerve is some- 
thing that comes to us in moments of stress, and 
we do not think of danger or glory, but just of 
going ahead.” 

He straightened himself suddenly, and got to 
his feet, to stand for a moment looking down at 
her, then the wistfulness in his face died into 
hopeless lines. “What more is there to say? I 
have always talked too much and said too little. 
I have made a mess of things since I began to 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


211 


live. I do not remember of doing a decent thing 
in my life, and now I must pay. The price is the 
hardest one that I could have been called upon 
to pay, for although I have not been good, I love 
you, Joan — I never loved a woman before, but I 
have loved you with all my heart and mind and 
soul. When I have looked ahead into the future, 
I have seen nothing but you. I know I said that 
I would not speak of love to you again, but I 
wanted you to know that although women have 
always been a temptation to me, you were always 
a thing apart, and I love you more tonight than 
I ever did before. There can be no greater Hell 
for me, than the giving you up.” It was a strange 
new Chang who stood before her, with no useless 
vows on his lips, no curves to his too handsome 
mouth, no mockery or carelessness in his voice, 
no gleam of passion in his burning eyes, only an 
infinite hopelessness that seemed to end all. 

She looked up at him — into his handsome, 
dissipated face, his deep set, beautiful eyes, his 
straight graceful figure, and something snapped 
in her heart that made it impossible for her to 
speak. Wicked, reckless, graceless Chang, whom 
women had always loved to their doom, faults and 
sins and all, she knew that she loved him better 
than life itself, yet even at that moment he was 
slipping farther and farther away from her into 
the darkness of the great beyond, out of the 
reach of her outstretched arms. It came to her 
then what he had said on the night six weeks 
ago when they had separated. She had promised 
then that only death would come between them. 


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Death had come, spreading his dark mantle over 
them, surely he had come taking his toll in more 
than life, for had he not mowed down on his 
pathway, her hopes, her faith and her trust ? 

He took a step towards the door, and then 
turned and looked back at her sitting there so 
white and still. A cry came to his lips, a cry so 
full of pain, and heartbreak and despair, that it 
echoed through her heart through all the many, 
many weary days to come. One stride, and he 
had gathered her into his arms, against his madly 
racing heart, and buried his face at her throat. 
Great heart tearing sobs broke from him, shaking 
his slim body, as she felt his hot tears on her 
neck. 

“Goodbye, little Joan, goodbye!” he said, and 
before she realized it he had pressed a dozen pas- 
sionate kisses on her soft curved lips and was 
gone. 

Gone! For a moment she sat with closed 
eyes, then with a little gasping cry, she stag- 
gered to her feet and took one tottering step to- 
wards the door that had closed him from her 
sight. 

“Lu!” her white lips whispered, and she 
reached out her arms toward the place where he 
had stood but a moment before, but only the 
moan of the wind mocked her, like lost souls 
wandering at night beyond the shelter of their 
lonely graves, and the swish of the rain on her 
window. 

Slowly, like one in a trance she turned away, 
and kneeled by the window. “Dear God, dear 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


213 


God!” she cried out and the prayer must have 
reached far beyond the banks of inky clouds that 
obscured the sky from her sight. 

“Mother, the world is full of weary lives, 
waiting and watching, weariness and pain — of 
tired hands and broken hearts, that kneel in 
stricken silence at the Cross.” 

The rain and wind swept her face in bitter 
guests, and stung her cheeks. She suddenly felt 
very, very tired, as though she would like to go 
to sleep and never awake. Sleep is very restful, 
our hands do not ache, neither do our hearts. 
Yet her heart seemed too hard and cold to ache, 
a thing of ice in her breast, but for its beating, 
and that strange cold feeling, she would have 
thought it dead. 

She seemed to be all alone in a distant world, 
looking through a dark mirror upon life. Spec- 
ters move back and forth-^the world with its 
myriad of people — she sees this thing called life 
— what a miserable thing it is at best — this thing 
called love — it is an emotion for fools — this thing 
called death — it means rest at last. 

There is a love that starts at the heart, and 
goes to the head. It is sweet, with the sweetness 
of life, and bitter with the bitterness of death, 
and it fills the soul with both — yet it lasts but for 
an hour. The scars of that love, when at last it 
has burned itself out into the dead ashes of dis- 
pair, lingers on the soul forever. But sometimes 
it cleanses the heart and makes it purer and bet- 
ter, for great things Sometimes it withers the 


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heart and makes it a dead and useless thing, 
longer fit for life. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. 


The Price Is Paid. 

“Miss Murray, Doctor Davis has arrived. He 
is downstairs in the office, waiting.” 

“Thank you. Miss Peters, you may bring him 
up here to me, please.” Then as the girl lin- 
gered near the door, “Was there anything that 
you wanted. Miss Peters?” 

Miss Peters’ fair face flushed. “I wanted to 
ask you. Miss Murray, if it were true what the 
girls say, that Miss Davis is going to die ?” 

“I am sorry to say that it is true. Miss 
Peters.” She gave the girl a keen glance. She 
wondered just what the school were saying of 
Mary, and here was her chance to find out. “Who 
told you of it?” 

“I do not think that any one told me. Miss 
Murray; the girls were wondering about her, and 
one of the seniors asked Miss Cory. She said 
that she was afraid that Miss Davis was tuber- 
cular, and that we had better not spend too much 
time in her room, on account of the other 
patients. Then we thought if she were so ill as 
that, she must be going to die. Would there be 
any hope for her in a sanitarium. Miss Murray?” 

216 


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THE LITTLE WORLD 


“I am afraid not, Miss Peters, for we discov- 
ered it too late. We have tried to get her well 
enough to move home in the country, but she 
has never tallied, and she seemed very happy 
here.” 

“Is there anything that I can do for her — 
or any of the girls can do? We would like to 
do some little thing. We were never very nice 
to her. Miss Murray. We never made friends 
with her — of course we did not know that she 
would die so soon.” 

Joan smiled a little sadly, “I wonder would 
you have treated her differently if you had known 
that she would not live to finish her training?” 

“Oh yes. Miss Murray, I should have been 
kinder with her, and every one would have been 
more patient when she was so slow. We thought 
it was because she wanted to shirk work, we did 
not know it was because she did not feel like 
hurrying as the rest of us.” Miss Peters bit her 
lip to hide its trembling. 

“It is rather a pity, my dear, don’t you think, 
that we do not realize more often, on just how 
slender a thread life hangs, as we go about our 
daily work, instead of waiting until something 
like this happens to bring it to our minds ? Then 
we should be more kind to every one. It would 
save us a great deal of sorrow and heartache and 
remorse, if we excused the faults of those about 
us while they lived, without waiting until they 
were dead.” 

“Yes, Miss Murray, you are right, but when 
people are living how can we help losing patience 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


217 


with their horrid ways? And there are some 
people whom I will never feel sorry about, even 
when they are dead, I am afraid.” 

“Perhaps we all feel that way sometimes, 
my dear. Now will you bring Doctor Davis to 
me, please?” 

Doctor Davis was a man scarcely over fifty, 
yet years of care, hard work and exposure to all 
kinds of weather had drawn a network of fine 
lines over his kindly face, and made him look 
much older. His hair and beard were almost 
gray, and his shrewd, kindly eyes looked out at 
one from under bushy brows. He gave Joan a 
long, keen look as he shook hands with her. “So 
you are the little Head about whom Mary wrote 
me. Well you look more like a girl to me, than 
the Head of all those white winged young ladies 
I saw flying about downstairs^ — a little girl with 
short skirts and a doll or two,” he said with a 
smile, then his face grew grave. “How is my 
little girl. Miss Murray?” 

“I wrote you her condition. Doctor Davis. I 
am afraid there has been no improvement since; 
indeed we did not hope for any.” 

“But why was I not told before? She has 
been ill a long time, by what you said. Was it 
not right that I should be told?” 

“You will have to forgive me. Doctor Davis. 
It was her request that I should not write you so 
long as she could write herself. She was very 
unselfish about it, she did not want you to suffer 
any longer than was necessary, and I granted her 
request.” 


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“But there are so many things I might have 
done for her — you will understand, Miss Murray, 
that I do not doubt that she has better attention 
than any I could have given her, but I should 
like to have done things for her with my own 
hands. She was all I had in the world. Ah,” 
he shook his head sadly; “we are permitted to 
save many lives that mean little to us, but we 
must let our own go, there is nothing we can do 
when the call comes.” 

Mary gave a little glad cry at sight of her 
father, and put out her thin arms to meet him, 
and he gathered her closely into them, while the 
tears ran down his kindly face. Joan went out 
softly, and closed the door behind her, leaving 
them alone. Her own beautiful eyes were burn- 
ing, and her throat ached, but no tears came to 
relieve her, the anguish in her heart was too deep 
for tears. 

The room in which Mary lay was room Six- 
teen, which Mrs. Godwin had occupied, and was 
one of the most beautiful rooms in the Murray 
Hospital. One of Doctor Murray’s theories had 
been that one of the greatest assets of the sick 
room, next to cleanliness, was beautiful surround- 
ings, so that each private room was a picture in 
itself. The room in which Mary lay was done in 
ivory and gold, the walls, the furniture, even the 
tiles of the floor, were done in ivory, so that there 
was no glaring whiteness as in the wards to 
dazzle the eyes. The sheerest of ivory curtains 
covered the wide windows, relieved by gold hang- 
ings, and the room was full of flowers. Every- 


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219 


where one looked was riotous bloom. Joan had 
left no stone unturned to give the girl everything 
that her heart could wish. Everything that could 
bring comfort and joy to the dying was brought 
to her. 

“There was never anyone like Miss Murray, 
Daddy," Mary said to her father, when he re- 
marked on the beauty of her surroundings. “You 
can never know all she has done for me since I 
have been sick. I could not have more if I were 
a queen, could I ? And I am so happy. Daddy. If 
it were not for leaving you all alone, I should not 
mind dying in the least. It seems so easy to lie 
here with no care, no tomorrow to worry about.” 

“But my little girl wanted to live when she 
left home. Why do you not want to come back 
home to me now, dear?” 

A shadow crossed Mary’s face for a moment 
at her father’s question. “Perhaps if I were 
home. Daddy, with all the dear familiar things 
around me, I should feel differently. Now life 
seems like a dream, far, far off — something un- 
real that might be hard to face again. I think 
perhaps when one comes to die, something is sent 
with death to make it easier, something that 
shows us clearly how little, after all, there is in 
life to regret. I have seen people die since I came 
here, and death is not as I used to picture it. 
People just ‘go out,’ as they say here — one mo- 
ment they were there, living, breathing human 
beings who demanded our time and attention, the 
next minute they were— nothing — Daddy, did you 
in your work ever think of it so — just nothing, a 


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lump of something with no life that needed any- 
thing. I never got used to the feeling — where 
does that breathing, living life go, when people 
die — when that strange mechanism of human ex- 
istence ceases? People never seem to worry 
about it when the time comes, they do not seem 
to be unhappy. Either they are too sick to real- 
ize it or they just drift into not caring as I have 
done. The only hard part about death is the 
leaving of those we love.” 

“But, .my little girl, you are very young 
Life holds many things in store for you, if you 
would come back to it. If it were the old man 
now, I who have lived out my life in fifty years, 
and have seen the best of it — but you, who have 
known so little of it.” 

“Dear Daddy, I have learned many things of 
life since I left my home and came here. The 
Hospital shows us other people’s lives, and how 
few of them are happy ones. After all it teaches 
us that life is not much after one sees it. We 
stand always on the threshold of an open door, 
and beyond that threshold lies the mystery of a 
new life, perhaps a better one than this.” 

“Perhaps a better life than this one,” the old 
man repeated softly. Let us hope so, Mary dear, 
for you have not found in your short life here 
much pain, but lost faith. 

Mary did not live long after her father came 
to her. It seemed that she lost what slender grip 
on life that she had, when she saw his face — as 
if she had been waiting for that one thing. Joan 
spent much of her time in the room with them, 


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221 


for in spite of her father’s presence, Mary wanted 
her there, and she liked best to stay. Perhaps 
in a measure she lost some of the weight of her 
own trouble in helping another to bear his, for 
in a thousand little ways she helped the old man 
in his grief. 

Then came a day when she felt the flickering 
pulse weaken in the heart’s last feeble efforts. 
Mary lay still, apparently asleep, only now and 
again she opened her eyes and a faint smile 
crossed her wan face. Sometimes she murmured 
their names, but when they spoke to her she did 
not answer. 

Joan had opened wide the windows, and the 
cold air came in to ease the labored breathing of 
the dying girl. She bent over by and by, notic- 
ing the breath growing shorter and shorter. 
“Mary, dear, can you speak to your father?’’ 

Mary opened her eyes and looked into her 
father’s face. “Daddy dear, I am so tired — let 
me go to sleep. Miss Murray — kiss me — good 
night.” 

She was quiet for a long time, and Joan had 
grown to think she had said her last “good night” 
when the tired eyes opened once more and the 
white lips moved. 

Joan bent close to catch the faltering words. 
“Miss Murray — there was something — I must tell 
you — ^before I go to sleep.” 

“What is it, Mary dear?” 

“Try not to love him too much, for he is not 
worthy and you— are too good.” 

The weak voice, the last brave effort, broke 


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the ice from around Joan’s heart, and suddenly 
her tears came. She kissed the dying girl again. 
“Mary, you have taught me many things in these 
last days — something more wonderful and beau- 
tiful than you will ever know,” she whispered as 
she buried her face in Mary’s pillow. 

A beautiful smile lit up for a moment the 
wasted face, then Mary drew a gasping breath, a 
moment of labor for another, and the heart had 
ceased to struggle. Joan got up again and bent 
over her, straightened the thin form on the bed, 
closed the eyes, and folded the hands, then she 
turned and went out of the room, leaving the old 
man alone with his dead. 

And so the price was paid, as ever the weak 
pay for the strong, and the innocent pay for the 
guilty, sickness and pain and death, and broken 
hearts and lives. 

And Mary went out bravely through the 
Open Door, through which all humanity must 
pass, into the outer darkness, in which only a 
few can see the gleam of light, and down the long, 
long trail alone. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. 


The Training School. 

The look on Joan Murray’s face in the days 
after Mary Davis’ death hurt Lessing Jones, 
because he knew that there was nothing that he 
could do to ease the ache in her heart. Her eyes 
had deep circles around them etched by the pencil 
of pain. She looked older than her years, a girl 
who had felt as well as seen life’s tragedies. But 
when he spoke to her, he was wise enough not 
to mention her appearance. He greeted her as 
he always did, and sat down on the chair she had 
indicated. 

They were going over some class examination 
papers, when Joan said to him suddenly, “Less, 
I should like to give up the training school.” 

“Will you find less worry in having gradu- 
ates ? Remember they are more independent 
than undegraduates. You will not be able to 
make them adhere so well to rules.” 

She laughed, a little mirthless laugh. “They 
would find it hard to keep less rules than the 
undergraduates, who as far as I can see, never 
keep any. However, I will not need so many rules 
with graduates, they will no longer have any de- 
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sire to do the foolish things that they might have 
once, now that they are clear of the training 
school. I will have less worry, yes, and I will no 
longer be responsible for human souls. I can 
stand the responsibility of human lives, but I 
can no longer stand the responsibility of human 
souls." 

“Joan, you are letting this thing get on your 
nerves. The girls are responsible for their own 
souls surely. You are not to blame if they are 
weak and foolish, nor the training school, either.” 

“They would not find so much temptation 
outside the training school. I, at least, can save 
them that.” 

“I don’f think you can. They will go to 
other training schools where conditions are much 
worse than they are here, and where the superin- 
tendent has no interest in human souls so long 
as she holds her position. They do not all take 
the girls’ troubles to heart like you do, Joan.” 

“At least I can’t help that, and I will not be 
the one to bring them into temptation.” 

“That does not sound like you, Joan. Surely 
you are not thinking about yourself?” 

“I am afraid I am. Less.” 

“But Joan you could do a great deal of good, 
if you would try to make this training school live 
up to the ideals that we hear so much about.” 

Joan laughed again, and her laugh was harder 
and colder than he had ever heard it. “I have 
neither the strength nor inclination to try to 
carry on the farce any longer. A model training 
school, indeed! with men like Doctor Thompson 


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225 


and few others on the staff, against one girl like 
myself. It will take stronger men and women 
than myself, and the doctors on this staff, to start 
a reformation. Even the nurses would not help 
me, they would not dare to tear down the fabric 
of deceit with which the training schools of to- 
day are covered, and start to build over anew. 
In each nurse’s heart is locked the secrets of the 
training school, and I doubt if one of them will 
ever have the courage to tell them. Once they 
are clear of its influence they are v/illing to leave 
it alone, they have been strong enough to over- 
come it — for it is only the strong that come 
through in the end — so they have no wish to 
bother with it. The weak who fall behind, like 
poor Mary, are lost in the everlasting rush of 
fate. My life seems to be a jumble of lies from 
morning until night, covering up and hiding all 
the little rotten things that go to make up our 
every day life.” 

“Joan, Joan, do not talk so. You are beside 
yourself with care and worry. You need a va- 
cation.” 

“Yes, I need a vacation that would last for 
the remainder of my life, and even then I should 
not be able to forget one-half of the things that 
I want to forget. No, I cannot take a vacation — 
it would only be a farce like everything else. We 
had a number of people in today, looking over 
the Hospital — it is one of the gruesome pleasures 
that travelers in the City enjoy, it seems. One 
little old lady said, ‘What a wonderful life you 
must lead in this beautiful place. I have always 


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thought of your wonderful work of mercy, making 
this Hospital one of the steps to Heaven. I should 
like to come here if I were ever ill.’ Oh, the royal 
farce of it. I longed to tell her that it was nearer 
to my conception of Hell than anything else that 
I could imagine. That every closed door hid some 
unspeakable life tragedy, that every white sheet 
covered nameless agony both mental and physical, 
and that every white uniform covered up more 
knowledge of vice than she had ever imagined in 
all her sheltered life. Needless to say, I only 
smiled and thanked her for her kind thought.” 

“Joan dear, something has broken your 
heart.” 

“Oh no, Less, my heart is not broken, it has 
only grown very hard. Soon it will not feel all 
these little every day occurrences like Mary Davis’ 
death. Very soon I will be able to see life in the 
raw without shuddering over it. If I live to be 
as old as my father, which God forbid, I will have 
grown harder than he, if that be possible.” 

“Ah, friend could thou and I with fate 
conspire. 

To grasp this sorry scheme of things en- 
tire. 

Would not we shatter it to bits, and then 

Remold it nearer to the heart’s desire ?” 

Jones quoted, more lightly than he felt. He was 
worried over the tension of Joan’s nerves, and 
his helplessness in the matter. 

“I do not imagine that Omar knew much 
about training schools in general, but he cer- 
tainly had a good conception of human nature,” 


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227 


Joan said quietly. “Yet who can mold things 
over to the heart’s desire alone?” 

“Joan, I will help all I can, you surely know 
that. Tell me is there anything I can do ?” 

“There is nothing that you can do to help 
matters. Less, though I thank you for your never- 
failing kindness. Mary’s death has upset me. 
Life seems a little cloudy just now, so you must 
overlook my outburst. I do not usually let things 
get so on my nerves, but you know that one’s 
shoulders are only made strong enough to bear so 
much of a load, and one’s mind so much care. I 
admit that I am tired, but have no time for a 
vacation, with the nurses so scarce, and the wards 
full to overflowing.” Joan sighed a little wearily. 

Jones echoed the sigh. Life had been cloudy 
these last weeks for more than Joan. Mary, 
sleeping far away on the country hillside in her 
narrow grave, was perhaps the happiest of them 
all. Doctor Davis went about his tasks with a 
heavy heart and a slow step ; he had grown over- 
night, into an old, old man. Doctor Godwin, work- 
ing over research in the west, felt the throbs of 
a festering sore beneath the shell of his hardness. 
Mrs. Godwin fighting life’s battles alone, in her 
weak way, had left her luxurious home to earn 
her daily bread among other of life’s workers. 
Lessing Jones carried beneath his calm exterior 
a heavy heart and the burden of another soul 
perhaps, while Chang carried the heaviest burden 
of them all, a burden of pain and remorse and un- 
rest, that drove him to long, mad rides over the 
countryside, God knew where. 


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Joan going about her work, noted the changes 
of the last months more than anyone. The gaps 
left in the ranks by the girls who had gone, the 
graduates who filled their places moved about 
their tasks swiftly and stiffly, looking with stern 
disapproval upon the unfortunate undergraduates 
and their mistakes. There was a lack of the old 
good comradeship that had existed among the 
girls even when they were quarreling among them- 
selves. 

Although she would not let the thought of 
Chang stay in her mind, Joan missed more than 
all, his careless, brown-clad figure sv/inging down 
the corridor, upsetting the routine of the wards, 
by his good humored disregard of rules. 

Even Lessing Jones seemed slipping away 
from her. Once he had come to the Hospital once 
and twice, and sometimes three times a day, now 
there were days when he did not come at all. 
Joan could not very well know that those days 
were spent with Chang. Jones was trying to help 
Chang in his mad fight with the demons of un- 
rest and despair, and often spent long days and 
nights with him. There were times when he felt 
himself losing, when in black moods of despair 
Chang made life a Hell for Jones as well as him- 
self. But Jones was not one to turn lightly from 
a task he had set himself, and in spite of many 
discouragements he kept on doggedly. If it were 
possible for him to pull Chang from the mire in 
which he had engulfed himself, Jones meant to 
do it. 

Jones roused himself from serious thoughts 


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229 


and spoke again. “Does anyone know where Mrs. 
Godwin is?” 

“I dare say someone of her friends knows, she 
told me she was not going to live any longer on 
Doctor Godwin’s money.” 

“But Godwin is coming home directly. Do 
you think he will look for her, when he comes 
back?” 

“I do not know. I do not blame Mrs. Godwin 
if she never goes back to him; he has acted like 
the hard man he is. I really thought Doctor 
Godwin a better man than what he has proven 
himself.” 

“Poor Godwin, Jeane was a fool to get herself 
in that mess.” 

Joan gave him a quiet glance. “All women 
are fools, who trust or care for a man. Less,” 
she said. 

He flushed. “Not all, Joan, although man 
is not a thing to be trusted,” he said, trying to 
speak lightly, as he rose to his feet. “Who have 
you specialing in Eleven now?” 

“A new nurse. I had put Miss Peters down 
in the ward. She made a good special, but who 
would have thought poor Mrs. Grey would have 
lived so long? How is she now. Less?” 

“I do not see any change. I thought per- 
haps if Godwin were here he might operate again. 
There might be a chance after all these months. 
The little nurse you have in there is very modest 
or something ; I have not caught a glimpse of her 
yet.” 

“Perhaps she has learned wisdom enough to 


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avoid men,” Joan said, smiling. “I suppose God- 
win will relieve you of the case as soon as he 
comes back.” 

“I dare say.” Jones put the examination 
papers on Joan’s desk. “I will glance in on my 
way downstairs,” he said as he went out. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. 

The Pathway of the Strong. 

Winter was wearing itself out, in cold winds, 
in snowy flurries, in heavy storms of sleet, when 
Miss Maxner came back to the Hospital. She 
had made a longer stay than they had planned at 
first, but when Joan Murray looked into her eyes, 
her face rosy with health, she was indeed satis- 
fied that her patience had not been in vain. 

She shook hands with the girl smilingly, and 
told her to sit down. “I am very glad to see you 
back again, looking so well. Miss Maxner.” 

“And I am glad to be back again. Miss Mur- 
ray. I have lost out on six months of my train- 
ing, but I feel that I can make it up with pleasure, 
now that I have had the rest.” 

“You will find some changes, I am afraid. 
Things have not gone on so smoothly, since you 
left.” 

“I am sorry. Miss Murray. You are looking 
tired ; I wish you might have a rest as I had.” 

“I wish that I could, my dear, but that is 
impossible at present. I am going to put you 
in charge of the surgery to relieve Miss Grey. 
She is going on as night supervisor. Now, Miss 
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Maxner, I want you to promise me that when 
things get hard again, you will come to me in- 
stead of turning to drugs. Remember that I am 
your friend.” 

“I will, indeed, Miss Murray; I shall never 
forget what you have done for me.” 

A glow of pleasure warmed Joan’s sad heart 
when the girl had left the room. Here at least 
was something for which to be thankful. She 
wondered if she might gradually gain influence 
over the girls in some way, and make them see 
that she was their friend.” 

Her thoughts were interrupted, and someone 
tapped on the door, and a moment later Doctor 
Godwin walked into the room. 

“Why, Doctor, we did not expect you back 
for another month,” she said as she greeted him. 

“No, I was called back rather suddenly. I 
have only been home a day, however, and came 
over to see you as soon as I could.” 

“I feel quite honored to be one of the first 
on your calling list,” she said smiling and indi- 
cating a chair. She knew in her heart that much 
as Doctor Godwin liked her, it was not to see 
her alone that he had come today. 

He sat down on his chair heavily, and Joan 
noted that he was looking thin and miserable, 
But there was no pity in her heart for him, for, 
she told herself, he had brought this misery down 
upon himself, so she began to talk indifferently 
of the weather, the patients, the hospital work, 
giving him no chance to voice the object of his 
visit. 


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233 


“Mrs. Grey, the patient in Eleven, is still 
alive. Doctor Godwin ; Doctor Jones was consider- 
ing the advisability of operating again, when you 
returned.” 

“Mrs. Grey? Oh, I remember — strange 
thing about that case — Jones wrote me about it 
while I was in the west — I don’t think another 
operation will help matters; however, I will look 
at her in time. I meant to shift that case off 
onto Jones altogether, but I see he was too clever 
for me.” 

“He knows you too well. Doctor Godwin,” 
Joan laughed. It had been a habit of Doctor God- 
win’s to shift off bad and uninteresting cases on 
whoever was foolish enough to take them. 

“The doctor grunted. “How is her con- 
dition ?” 

“Not much different than when you went 
away. Of course long weeks in bed have weak- 
ened her.” 

“Have you the same nurse with her?” 

“No, doctor, I had one of my young nurses 
with her for experience, but the girl was wasting 
her training there, so I got one from outside to 
put in her place. Not a graduate, but one who 
suits Mrs. Grey very well.” 

“Which goes to show that you were fed up 
with the case. Bah, never saw anything like an 
emergency hospital, if the cases don’t die or get 
well enough to get out in a certain number of 
weeks, you get sick of them— pitch them out on 
the street if you dared.” 

“Now, Doctor, that is not fair, we do not 


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get tired of cases any sooner than the doctors 
who bring them in.” 

Godwin laughed a short laugh, then grunted 
again, and Joan wondered just how much longer 
his patience would stand the talk of staff affairs. 

“Will you take up staff work at once. Doctor. 
Doctor Gerry is doing staff operating now, as 
Doctor Thompson is ill, and has not been doing 
any work for some time. Doctor Gerry will be 
expecting you to relieve him, I think.” 

“Well, Gerry can expect — I’m not going to 
take up staff work for some time. Time Gerry 
had something to do besides running over the 
country side on wild goose chases.” He was silent 
for a moment, then he said abruptly, “Have you 
seen Mrs. Godwin lately?” 

“What do you mean by lately. Doctor, I have 
seen her a number of times since you went west. 
She called on me one day after she left the Hos- 
pital as a patient, but that was some time ago. 
Have you seen her since you came home?” 

“No, I have not seen her — I have not heard 
from her since I went west,” the doctor snapped. 

“And that is what brought you back so soon,” 
Joan said to herself, but aloud she said quietly, 
“Did you expect her to write to you ?” 

“I expected to hear from her in some way.” 

Joan looked mildly surprised. “Do you not 
know where she is. Doctor?” 

“No, I don’t,” he said sharply. “I would not 
have to ask you where she was if I did, would I? 
I am not particular about shouting my private af- 
fairs to the public, unless it is necessary. She 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


236 


has not been with any of her friends since I went 
away, as near as I can find out without making 
a fool of myself, and telling everyone that I do 
not know where my wife is.” 

Joan knew that Doctor Godwin had humbled 
himself to a great degree when he had come to 
her, but she only said, “I suppose she did not 
want her friends to know that you deserted her 
when she needed you most. Why should she let 
you know where she is? You did not consider 
her feelings when you went away, why should 
she consider yours ?” 

“She never considered my feelings in any- 
thing, but it is my right to know where she is.” 

“I wonder, is it? I rather think it is her 
affair if she does not want you to find her.” 

“Now, Joan, you are carrying this thing too 
far. It is my affair to know about Mrs. God- 
win's movements, and I mean to know.” 

“Very well. Doctor Godwin, no one is going 
to stop you from finding out, but I am equally 
sure no one of her friends will tell you where she 
is.” 

“Why?” he barked. 

Joan shrugged. “Well, you are taking a sur- 
prising amount of interest in Mrs. Godwin now. 
If you had taken more of an interest in her two 
or three years ago, it would have been more to 
your credit, and all this would not have hap- 
pened.” 

The doctor's florid face was beginning to take 
on a purplish hue, but Joan had long since gotten 
over being frightened with his hot tempers. “You 


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still persist in thinking her a wronged woman,” 
he sneered. 

“And you still persist in thinking yourself a 
wronged man,” Joan said, smiling a little. 

“Hump, leave it to the woman to take a wom- 
an’s part every time, and put the blame all on the 
man. I thought you had more sense, Joan.” 

“If one woman did not stand up for another. 
Doctor, who would do it? Not the men, I am sure 
of that.” 

“But my dear girl, Jeane is my wife and I 
mean to know where she is and what she is do- 
ing. I have a right to say what she shall or shall 
not do.” 

“So?” Joan laughed a cold little laugh. “You 
are rather behind the times with your cave man 
ideas. The time is past when a man can use his 
wife as pleases his fancy, and then bring her to 
subjection with a word. Women have found that 
there is a place for them in the world, without 
having always to depend on men. They have an 
individual character and life as well as have the 
men. Mrs. Godwin has found this out since you 
went away from her when she needed you most. 
What do you want her back for? Are you going 
to forgive her and take her into your heart and 
home again, to make her life that of a happy 
wife, or do you want her so that you may deal 
out misery to her, as you did before you went 
away?” 

“You have some courage, my girl, to talk to 
me like that. What business is it of yours why 
1 want to see Mrs. Godwin ?” 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


237 


“None whatever, Doctor. I am willing to 
drop the subject at once. Shall we talk of some- 
thing else?” 

“I came here to find out where Mrs. Godwin 
is, Joan, and I intend to do so before I leave. 
What I want her for is no affair of anyone’s but 
mine. She is a lucky woman that I did not di- 
vorce her.” 

“I think she is particularly unlucky, as you 
put it. It was through no virtue on your part 
that you did not divorce her. It was against your 
religion for one thing, and you had absolutely 
nothing to divorce her for, for another. You 
would have made a pretty figure of yourself if 
you had tried to do so, with what evidence you 
had. I think that probably she is as anxious 
for divorce as you are, anyway.” 

Godwin sprang to his feet, and his voice was 
like the crack of a whip. “What? Does Jeane 
want a divorce from me? Has she gone back to 
this other man?” 

For a moment Joan’s face went very white, 
but she spoke calmly, “She is with no other man. 
How insulting and suspicious you are. Doctor. She 
does not want a divorce other than to get away 
from your hardness.” 

“Hardness? Joan, I have not been more 
hard than she deserves. If she had cared one lit- 
tle bit for me she would never have done this 
thing.” 

“What thing?” 

“Gone about with, and fallen in love with an- 
other man.” 


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“Whoever said that Mrs. Godwin was in love 
with another man? Not she! You were the 
only one who adhered to that idea. How many 
times had she been with this other man? Once! 
The first time in years. They went out for tea 
at the Wayside Inn, and were coming home by 
the River Road. No one would ever have thought 
of it had not the car gone over a bank. I sup- 
pose, Doctor, if you took me to tea at the Way- 
side Inn, you would be forever branded by your 
wife as one who had done a great wrong.” 

“That is an entirely different case, Joan, and 
is not to be compared with this.” 

“I fail to see the difference, but then, of 
course, you have your eyes fixed on one point, 
and there they will stay. I am a little tired of 
your attitude. Doctor, shall we talk of something 
else?” 

“Then you refuse to tell me where Mrs. God- 
win is.” 

Joan smiled quietly. “After all, I have not 
said that I knew where Mrs. Godwin is. She 
probably knows you are in the city — I saw it in 
the morning paper — and if she wants to com- 
municate with you, she will do so no doubt. It 
is not my place to have anything to say in that 
matter. 

The doctor got up with a heavy sigh. “You 
are only a child, Joan, or you would see my point 
of view. If I have been hard, at least I have done 
what I thought right.” 

“And that is more than many of us do,” 
Joan said, rising also. 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


239 


In speaking of the matter afterwards to Les- 
sing Jones, Joan said that at that moment Doctor 
Godwin had looked as though he were going to 
pick her up and shake her. But Joan was one of 
the few people whom Godwin feared, he dared not 
bully her if the truth were known. He had al- 
ways thought of her as a child, and treated her 
as one, but her frank and fearless sharpness was 
too much for him. 

He knew now that his only hope in seeing 
Mrs. Godwin lay with Joan, so he made a digni- 
fied, if somewhat wrathful exit from her office, 
leaving her with a mischievous twinkle in her 
eyes, as soon as the door had closed behind him. 

She was quite satisfied in her mind that 
Godwin wanted his wife back at any cost, but she 
knew also, that if reconciliation were not based 
on thorough pentinence on both sides, things 
would not be better than they had been before 
Mrs. Godwin’s accident. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX. 

When the Guilty Pay. 

But though Jones had watched over Chang 
very carefully, carrying as well as he might, the 
burden of another soul, in the end he lost for Fate 
stepped in and took the task from his hands leav- 
ing him helpless. 

Chang went out one night in his racer, on 
one of his mad cross country rides. It was a dark 
and stormy night and the wind blew about in fear- 
ful gusts, blowing the rain about in drifting 
sheets, until one could not see a hand before the 
face. But Jones followed him, a flaming streak 
of recklessly driven car, far into the black night, 
over rough uneven country roads, where the slip- 
pery mud was like grease beneath the tortured 
wheels, and through lanes, and God forgotten 
way paths until they reached the River Road, with 
its rocky dangerous stretches and heart breaking 
turns, now well nigh impossible with the winter 
rains. Chang drove a powerful racing car, but 
the car Jones drove was a lighter one, and better 
for the roads they traveled, so that Jones was 
able most of the time to keep the other in sight. 
Praying and swearing Jones followed on, his heart 
240 


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241 


palpitating between fear and joy, as they came 
to the turns and then passed safely on. But he 
never thought of the risk he himself was taking, 
it was only of Chang that he was afraid, yet 
Chang was not in so much danger as he, for he 
knew the road better, and his car did not skid as 
easily as Jones'. If Chang knew of the car be- 
hind he gave! no sign. Perhaps his thoughts were 
too far away to notice, perhaps they were too 
black to care. 

He had ridiculed Jones for following him be- 
fore, laughed at him, sneered at him, or cursed 
him as the mood suited him, but Jones did not 
care so long as he could be there if anything hap- 
pened to the car ahead. Tonight something 
gripped his heart, like a cold hand. How would 
it all end? How long could Chang keep up this 
nerve racking, body wrecking, restless bitterness ? 
How long could he, Jones, be able to keep up the 
waiting and watching and care? The rain stung 
his face, cold and hard like hail. His gloves were 
wet through, and his hands numb with the cold. 
Sometimes going around a sharp bend, the car 
ahead was lost to his sight for moments at a time. 
He feared at times he was losing. Joan had said 
that the woman always paid. He wondered 
vaguely what she would have thought if she had 
seen this mad race with death. What deadly bit- 
terness and dispair drove this man to the point 
where only mad physical recklessness was his only 
relief. God alone knew, Jones could but guess. 
He was glad that Joan could not see, could not 
know, it would only make her burden heavier, and 


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that was not necessary. She had had as much as 
she could bear already, and he doubted that even 
she could help Chang any now. 

The rain was changing to an icy sleet that 
froze as it fell. It blinded Jones and seemed to 
freeze on his face. The road was growing more 
and more slippery. Once at a turn his car skidded 
half around and he only righted it with an ef- 
fort. The same thing must have happened to the 
car ahead, for he saw the lights flash for a mo- 
ment on the cliff to the left of them. Surely 
Chang would soon see the folly of his ways and 
turn towards home, for this could not last. Jones 
resolved that if they ever reached home alive that 
night, that Chang should never get out again, if 
he, Jones had to use physical force. 

But the end came suddenly, much as Jones 
had feared. The car ahead took one of the peril- 
ous turns without decreasing its speed, skidded 
half around and plunged over the steep bank into 
the dry river bed twenty feet below. 

Jones brought his own car to a sliding stop 
and got out, to run to the bank where the car 
had gone over. All was still below, for the en- 
gine for some reason had stopped running. Curs- 
ing — sobbing — spraying strange broken prayers, 
Jones slid down the icy bank, slipping, falling, 
trying to keep his feet, he went towards the dark 
mass that was once a car After some moments 
with the aid of his flash light he located Chang, 
lying on his face half under the smashed car. He 
was unconscious but not dead, and with a super- 
human effort, Jones succeeded after some time 


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243 


in getting him free. Lifting him from the ground 
as gently as he could, he swung the unconscious 
form over his shoulder and began the terrible as- 
cent over the steep icy bank. Jones never re- 
membered that climb afterwards without an in- 
ward shudder, dragging, carrying, sometimes 
pushing Chang ahead of him, he crawled. Once 
he fell, and they both slipped again halfway to the 
bottom, and Jones gritted his teeth and started 
over the path again. 

Even at the top he could not stop to rest un- 
til he had put Chang in the back of his car, and 
then he climbed into the front seat and started 
back towards home through the storm. Once he 
got out to see if Chang were still living, and when 
he reached a road house he got out again to tele- 
phone Doctor Godwin to meet him at the hospital. 
He did not know exactly why he had called God- 
win instead of Doctor Gerry, but he knew that 
if such a thing were possible Godwin would keep 
Joan out of the accident room. 

Godwin met him at the hospital. He had 
persuaded Joan to go to bed as she was very tired 
and had the accident room nurses there alone 
when Jones arrived, much to the latter’s relief. 
He felt that he could not face Joan tonight with 
what he had brought. 

Examination proved what he had feared from 
the first, that Chang was fatally injured. He 
still lived, but on account of injury to the spine 
he was paralyzed from the waist down. By a 
strange coincidence, the only private room vacant 
in the house was the one where Mary Davis had 


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died, and Mrs. Godwin had occupied during her 
illness, room Sixteen. As they placed him on the 
bed, he opened his eyes, and for a moment they 
fell on Godwin. 

“Hello Godwin — didn’t know you were back,” 
he said slowly. “Where am I?” 

Jones came over to him. “At the Hospital, 
Lu. Do you remember what happened to you ?” 

“Do I ? Sure, I went over that infernal bank 
on the River Road, into the river bed. Who fished 
out the pieces, you?” 

“I was right behind, and saw you go over,” 
Jones said gently. 

Chang’s lip curled. “Followed me again, did 
you? Well you must have had some ride — if I 
remember rightly.” 

He turned his eyes to Godwin again. “I 
guess I am done for, old man — so you can make 
up your mind to forgive me perhaps.” 

Godwin gave him a puzzled look. “Forgive 
you ?” Then his face whitened. “My God, Chang 
—you ?” 

“Yes, I am the guilty one.” A bitter little 
smile twisted his lips as he glanced at Jones. 
“Game — when it — is — too late,” he drawled. 

“But you, Chang?” Godwin repeated dazedly. 

“I said it,” Chang said, with a little frown 
gathering on his brow. “You have been hard 
on Jeane, Godwin, but you were wrong, she was 
nothing to me — and I nothing to her — never any- 
thing but friends. You were always too hard on 
her. Doc. Try to reform before you come to — 


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245 


this. Death bed repentence — bah, when it is too 
late to do any good.” 

Chang’s eyes closed at the last word, and he 
sank into unconsciousness. Godwin looking at 
him shook his head. It was doubtful, he said, 
whether he would ever return to consciousness 
again. Godwin’s tone had softened. Something 
in Chang’s simple confession had pierced the shell 
of hardness with which he covered up his heart. 
For once he forgave without demure, suddenly 
and whole heartedly. He, too, had liked Chang in 
spite of his wickedness. 

“Should we call Joan, do you think?” Jones 
asked after a moment, but Godwin shook his head. 

“Why disturb her?” he asked, and it came 
to Jones suddenly that Godwin knew nothing of 
the brief engagement that had existed between 
the two. It might be as well he thought for God- 
win to know, then he would be more sure that 
nothing existed between Jeane Godwin and Chang, 
so he explained in as few words as possible. God- 
win looked grave, but he shook his head again. 

“Let her rest tonight. Chang will probably 
live twenty-four hours at the least. She will have 
plenty of time to see him alive even if he isn’t 
conscious.” 

“But she will never forgive me if he does not 
live to speak to her again, after not being here 
tonight,” Jones said dismally. 

Godwin shrugged. “Don’t tell her then. It 
would not do her any good to know.” 

But Jones sighed heavily as he sat down be- 
side the bed to watch. He had tried hard to save 


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Chang from himself, but how miserably he had 
failed. It came to him as he kept his silent vigil 
there, something that Chang had said to him, once 
long before. “You will never know what it means 
to fight a devil within you all the time, and never 
know what it is going to tempt you into next. 
Remember there is nothing good in me but my 
love for Joan, and that may never save me from 
myself.” Poor Chang, his devil had run him to 
earth at last. Tears came to his eyes as he looked 
on the broken figure before him, once so strong 
and filled with vivid life, now weak and dying 
broken on life’s pitiless wheel, tears of which he 
was not ashamed. In spite of the fact that he 
had taken Joan’s love from him, Jones loved 
Chang wholeheartedly, faults and sins and all, for 
Chang was a lovable chap at his very worst. If 
he could have given up his own life and made 
Chang into the man he was made to be, he would 
gladly have done it. Life was not worth so much 
to him — ^was it to any of them? Fate’s careless 
fingers had surely thrown to them the black 
cards, omen of evil. Was this their reward for 
trying to live decently and according to rule? 
After all, Chang, who would in all probabilities 
pass out into eternity without pain, was better 
off than any of them. Like Mary he would sleep 
and not be tired any more — “neither do our hands 
ache, nor our hearts.” 

Godwin came in to speak to him, before he 
drove home. “Miss Smith has sent Miss Perry as 
a special,” he said. “Will you drive home with 
me?” 


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247 


Jones shook his head. “No, I will stay to- 
night. I will lie on the couch in the alcove, and 
Miss Perry can get me if she needs me.” He 
glanced at his wrist watch. “It is past three now, 
better hurry home, if you want any sleep.” 

“I will. Just had a cup of coffee downstairs, 
better go down and have some; you look all in, 
Jones.” 

“All right. I do feel a bit knocked up.” He 
got up with a sigh and followed Godwin from the 
room, just as Miss Perry came in. 

As they came out into the hall, a small figure 
passed down the corridor and disappeared into 
room Eleven. Neither Jones nor Godwin caught 
sight of the pale face under the kerchief cap, 
bound around her head, and Godwin asked who 
she was. 

Jones looked after the trim figure. “New 
nurse Joan has put on in Eleven to special the 
Grey case. Stranger here, I guess. Very shy, I 
never see her about when I go in.” 

Godwin sneered. “Different from most of 
them,” he said with curling lip. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN. 

The End of the Trail. 

Jones came out of Chang’s room when he 
heard Joan on her way down to breakfast, and 
greeted her on the stairs. “I took the liberty of 
staying all night with my patient. I wonder if 
I might have some breakfast with you?” 

“Certainly, Doctor Jones. My breakfast is 
usually a lonely one, and I will be glad to have 
you. How is your patient ?” she said with a smile 
as they descended the broad stairs together. 

“Not doing well. I am afraid he is done for, 
poor chap.” He was trying to make his voice 
casual. He wanted Joan to have something to 
eat at least before this new trouble came upon 
her. 

“What kind of an accident was it. Less?” 
she asked when they were seated at the table. 

“Automobile ran over the bank on the River 
road. He was caught under the car and his back 
is injured. I doubt if he ever returns to con- 
sciousness.” 

“I wonder why the River Road is not closed 
up, or repaired. Why will people risk it, I won- 
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249 


der — and a night like last night? Was anyone 
with him?” 

“No, he was alone — that is there was a car 
right behind, saw him go over. I think people 
take the Kiver Road because it cuts off a few miles 
coming in from outside points to the City. One 
would be excused for taking it last night.” Jones 
found his words tumbling over one another— he 
was making a poor attempt at explanations as 
well as at his breakfast. 

But Joan did not seem to notice. “We get 
more accidents from that strip of road than any- 
where else in the country side,” she remarked. 

“I put my patient in Sixteen, and Miss Smith 
gave me Miss Perry as a special,” Jones went on 
after a moment. 

“That was perfectly all right. Less. Only 
Miss Smith should have known better than to put 
Miss Perry on specialing again, as she just came 
off a case.” 

Jones sighed. “She won’t be on this one long, 
I am afraid, Joan,” he said sadly. 

“Oh.” Joan looked up at him. “Have you 
finished. Less? If so we will go up and look at 
your patient.” 

“Just a moment, Joan, I wanted to tell you 
something about him.” Jones stopped. He felt 
suddenly that he could not sit there and see what 
little light was left in Joan’s eyes go out. 

Joan waited, tapping the table lightly with 
her fingers, and he knew she was growing im- 
patient and not a little puzzled. It was so unlike 
Jones to hesitate over a matter of importance. 


THE LITTLE WORLD 




“Yes?” she prompted after a moment. 

“My God, Joan! Don’t you understand? I 
have brought him back to you and he is dying!” 
It was abrupt, but it was the best that Jones’ 
over-strained nerves could do. There is no easy 
way of breaking bad news anyway. 

She rose slowly to her feet, looking at him 
with wide eyes. “What do you mean?” 

He got to his feet, too. “It is Chang, Joan 
dear. I brought him here last night. He drove 
over the bank on the River Road.” 

It seems strange that in a great crisis, when 
one has received a terrible shock, the mind dwells 
first on small details, and so it was with Joan. 
“How did you find him?” she asked, slowly, still 
looking at him with that wide-eyed stare. 

“I followed him when he went out. I could 
not stop him, so I did the best I could ; I followed 
him to the end. I was only a few rods behind 
when his car skidded over the bank, and down 
into the bed of the river. I brought him here — 
I thought it best. Godwin met me.” 

“Did you know he was dying, when you tele- 
phoned Godwin?” she asked, calmly, almost coldly. 
She might be discussing almost any accident, for 
all the emotion she felt. It seemed that her heart 
had frozen within her, it felt so cold and hard. 

“I was afraid, Joan, but I would not believe 
it until Godwin and I examined him together. I 
had been so careful, and watched so closely that 
I would not believe that I had failed, and it had 
all been in vain.” 

“Yet you asked Doctor Godwin to send me 


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to bed,” she said bitterly. “What do you mean 
by watching him closely? What had you to do 
with him?” 

He threw out his hands in a little pleading 
gesture. “Don’t look and speak like that, Joan! 
Chang has not been well lately, and has been 
very restless. I was looking out for him. I was 
his friend.” 

“Yet you did not deem it necessary to tell 
me, who was also his friend,” and turning she 
walked out of the room. He followed her up the 
stairs again to Sixteen, afraid of that awful calm 
that had settled over her, yet knowing that there 
was nothing that he could do to help. 

At the door Miss Perry met them. “There 
has been no change. Doctor Jones,” she said. 

“Very well, you may go now. We will be 
with the patient for some time, and will not need 
you,” Joan said. 

Miss Perry gave Jones a questioning look, 
and he went into the corridor with her. “We 
may need you later. Miss Perry, you might stay 
near the register so that you can answer at once 
if I ring.” He dismissed her with a kindly smile 
that made Lessing Jones the best loved doctor 
on the staff. 

When he went into the room, Joan was stand- 
ing very still and white by the side of the bed, 
looking down at the still face on the pillow. A 
fair, boyish face, from which unconsciousness had 
washed all traces of sin and dissipation, leaving 
it strangely young and sweet. 

A heavy sigh shook Jones as he looked down 


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on that face. Poor Chang, he had gone through 
all the perils and dangers of France to come back 
to this. Why was life so, he wondered. How 
much better it would have been for them all if 
Fate had chosen him a hero’s death on the blood- 
stained fields of France. Once he remembered, 
Chang had made a strange remark. “The best 
went down to death, out there,” he had said, in 
answer to some remark Jones had made about 
his ribbons, “and the riff-raff came back with 
the decorations.” 

“You are going to stay here, Joan? There 
is a chance of him returning to consciousness — 
one in a hundred, I should say. I shall stay out- 
side the door to be near if you need me.” He 
spoke humbly to this strange new Joan who stood 
there. 

“You had better stay in the room,” she said 
quietly, without taking her eyes from Chang’s 
face. “You are his friend — a better friend than 
I have been, it seems. You stayed to the end — I 
failed him.” 

He came near to her, pushing a chair near 
the bed, and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. 
“Joan, won’t you sit down, dear?” putting her in 
it with tender hands. “I will sit over by the win- 
dow, since you wish me to stay in the room. Shall 
I open the window, or will it be too cold for you ?” 

She shook her head. “No open it, please. It 
should have been opened before.” 

He took a chair after he had pushed open the 
window, where he could command a view of both 


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faces, and yet not intrude himself upon Joan. 
And thus they kept their silent watch. 

Doctor Godwin came in near noon, and he 
and Jones discussed the case in low tones, spoke 
of trying different things, hinted at an operation, 
only to shake their heads over each new thing 
that came to their minds. Both knew only too 
well that no human power could save Chang, and 
they had known it from the first, yet they went 
carefully over every detail of the case, and others 
like it, talking of what they might do. 

At noon Jones sent Joan from the room for 
a cup of coffee, if she could not eat lunch. He 
was surprised that she went without making any 
demur. She did not stay long, however, and after 
she had come back Jones went down, but he 
scarcely tasted the strong coffee he had ordered 
the maid to bring him, though he sat for a long 
time by the table, staring into space. 

Late in the afternoon Chang opened his eyes, 
looking straight into Joan’s wide, dark ones, and 
the faintest smile curved his lips. He spoke quietly 
as though he had been lying there thinking for 
some time, knowing they were there. Jones rose 
to his feet and came to the bed, putting in Joan’s 
hand the preparation he had made for Chang to 
drink if he awoke. 

Chang drank thirstily, then he turned his 
eyes until Jones came into his line of vision. “Still 
here, old chap? Come around where I can see 
you, there is some darn thing wrong with my 
neck, can’t seem to turn my head.” 

Jones moved to the other side of the bed. 


2S4 


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“How do you feel, old man?" he asked, gently. 

The lips of the dying man curled into one of 
their old, mocking smiles. “How do you suppose 
I feel, after the slide I took?" he said. Then his 
eyes turned wistfully to Joan. “You do not mind 
my being here, do you, Joan. Just like Jones’ 
infernal tactlessness to bring me here.” 

“I do not mind, dear." Some of the coldness 
had gone out of Joan’s face. It was tender and 
sweet, and immeasurably sad, as she bent over 
him. 

Chang looked from one face to the other, 
and his straight brows contracted in a slight 
frown. He was thinking, and it was not hard for 
him to come to a conclusion. He had no pain, and 
he felt himself free of bandages. He tried gin- 
gerly to move a leg, and it came to him suddenly 
that he could not move either, in fact, he would 
not have known by any sensation in them whether 
he had legs or not. “How long since you brought 
me here?" he asked, briefly. 

“Since last night," Jones answered him. 

“Then according to schedule I should be a few 
miles along the other trail by this time, instead 
of hanging about here. How came this, Jones — 
and what ails my legs?" 

“Your back was hurt when the car fell on 
you, old chap.” 

“You don’t by any chance mean that I am 
going to hang on in this condition for long, do 
you? God forbid, I thought I made a better job 
of it than that." 

Jones did not answer for a moment, then he 


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256 


bent over the bed and said in a now tone: “You 
did, Lu. We tried to fix you up, but you had done 
your work too well.” 

Again the lip curled in a sneer. “Then I 
reckon that I am done for — ^have reached — ^the 
nothing I set out for.” His voice trailed into 
silence, and his eyes closed wearily. When he 
opened them again Jones had left the room, and 
Joan was alone with him. 

“Joan.” 

“Yes, dear.” 

“You forgave me, didn’t you?” 

“Yes, dear, I forgave you long ago. Surely 
you knew that?” she reached out and took his 
hand in a firm grip. 

He smiled faintly. “I was not worth your 
love or forgiveness, dear. I was never a man, 
never any good, but I have gotten my wish, to 
die near to you. How good you have been to 
allow me that.” 

“Ah, my dear, I want you near. I should 
never have let you gone from me. Now that it 
is too late, I realize how much I wanted and 
needed you.” 

“Never mind, little girl, you could never have 
saved me. Look at Jones. He did all any human 
being could do, but I was not fit to live. I am 
better dead, girl, dear, better dead. Try to re- 
member me as you knew me first — cover up my 
sins with a cloak of kindness, as the earth will 
cover up my body. They say, ‘Eat, drink and be 
merry, for tomorrow you die.’ My tomorrow has 
come. I have eaten of the tree of Knowledge, and 


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drained the cup of Life, and what is there left?” 

After a moment he indicated a ring he had 
always worn, set with diamonds, in the shape of a 
cross. 

“I want you to take it from my finger, dear, 
and wear it if you will. Long ago my mother 
placed it there. See, I have lost one of the stones 
and it spoils the cross. Like all other things in 
my life, it is marred. I have carried it through 
many scenes — she gave it to me perfect and pure, 
when I was worthy of it — thank God, she never 
lived to know how unworthy I have become — so 
I give it to you, dear love, stained and marred as 
my life, unworthy of any good.” 

As she stooped to take the ring from his 
finger, she noticed his labored breathing, and 
touched the bell with her finger, that Jones, wait- 
ing in the corridor, would come in. 

As Jones came to the side of the bed, Chang 
opened his eyes for the last time. “It has come 
at last, old man, we see it too often not to know 
when we come face to face with it ourselves.” 

Jones reached down and took the hand half 
reached out to him. The winter sunset filtered 
through the half-closed blind, and fell like spent 
golden arrows across the bed. One touched lightly, 
carressingly the face of the dying. “Jones,” he 
whispered, “you took the one road, and I the other 
— you the right, and I the wrong. I took all that 
you wanted most — but you never went back on 
me — you forgave — a better, truer man never 
walked God’s earth. Ah, I have broken many 
hearts, and ruined many lives — ^but I sold my own 


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267 


soul in the doing. Who would have thought it 
would end so soon — a coward’s way out — always 
a coward. You tried to hold me back — ^but no 
one could save me — no one. Joan, where are you 
— ^kiss me — and forgive — forget — ” His lips 
curved for a moment in his old-time smile, a gleam 
of the sunset lingered for a moment in his golden 
eyes, then he lay still, and Chang had passed into 
the great beyond and down the long, long trail 
with Mary, where, perhaps, the judgment will be 
given, not according to the sin, but according to 
the temptation. 

Joan came slowly to her feet, and stood look- 
ing down at him with a startled unbelieving stare, 
then with a little cry she held out her arms to 
Lessing Jones, who sprang forward in time to 
catch her as she fell. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT. 

And Life Goes On. 

Even life’s tragedies cannot stop the daily 
round of duty, and Joan found herself going about 
her work much as she had always done. Only 
Jones knew the heartache that lay hidden beneath 
her quiet manner. He carried a heartache also, 
that even Joan was not allowed to see. One com- 
fort he had had, she had turned to him in her 
greatest trouble, and she had not found him want- 
ing. What she would have done without him in 
those weeks following Chang’s death, she never 
could have told, yet even then she did not realize 
just how much he stood between her and the 
things that might hurt her. 

A settled quiet had come over her that sur- 
prised her. Somehow it seemed that she was more 
at rest, knowing that at last the man she had 
loved so unwisely, yet so well, was safely sleeping 
in his grave instead of wandering God knew 
where, over the earth. At least she need never 
worry over him now, for he had gone beyond 
temptation and sin. Living he could never have 
been hers, but dead he was hers forever. 

Once Jones, coming into her office as she 
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sat gazing out of her window, towards the quiet 
graveyard, just hidden behind the walls of the 
Convent, Jones had interrupted her thoughts. 

“Joan,” he said, very gently, “don’t brood too 
much over the grave over there. Kemember that 
no matter how happy has been a life. Death al- 
ways brings infinite peace. It is the living over 
which we may mourn, but for the dead we need 
have no fear.” 

She looked up at him in wonder. “You think 
the dead are always happy. Less?” 

He smiled briefly. “Why should I think oth- 
erwise?” he said, quietly. “Life is full of sorrow 
and pain and care. Death is the open door through 
which we may pass into a wonderful beyond, and 
leave all this behind.” He raised his eyes to hers 
for a moment. “Lu never knew peace on earth, 
his was a restless ungoverned spirit, which none 
could control, but in the infinite regions of death, 
he will at last know the wonderful, and all abiding 
peace, of the promises.” 

Long after he had gone, Joan sat by the win- 
dow thinking of his words, strange words for 
one so reticent as Jones. Yet by and by they 
brought to her a quiet comfort that she had not 
known before. 

Things about the Hospital began to interest 
her again. Other people’s affairs came to her 
notice. She became more like the Joan of other 
days, when the Hospital had first fallen upon her 
young shoulders, and she had taken up her burden 
of care. She had grown softer and more tender, 
the ice had melted around her heart. Her rare 


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smile came back again, and the sadness in it only 
added to its sweetness, if that were possible. 
Though the fire of trouble and sorrow had 
scorched and burned her, her nature was too 
nearly pure gold to be marred to any extent. 

One day she encountered Doctor Godwin in 
the hall and spoke to him. “Your patient in 
Eleven, after all these months, has taken a turn 
for the worse. Doctor Godwin.” 

“So I see. Poor thing, her people do not 
seem to take much interest in her, do they? Did 
you know that her husband has taken to driving 
out with one of your nurses?” 

Joan sighed. “Yes, I spoke to her about it, 
but it seems he only takes a fatherly interest in 
her, so what could I do? I sent for Mr. Grey, 
early in the morning, but he has not arrived yet, 
although I told him that Mrs. Grey was in a seri- 
ous condition.” 

Doctor Godwin shrugged. “She was never 
a pleasant patient, and I daresay was none too 
pleasant to live with. How does her special man- 
age?” 

“She is very patient with her.” 

“I have never seen her around; is she a good 
nurse?” 

“Very. Will you look in on your way down- 
stairs, doctor. Mrs. Grey is unconscious, but I 
daresay the special will feel relieved if you go in 
for a moment.” 

“There is nothing that I can do for the 
woman — ^but I will look in. Coming ?” 

“No, the special is there, and you can give 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


261 


her any orders. I will be in the office when you 
come down.” She turned and went down the 
steps with a queer little smile curving her sweet 
lips. 

Doctor Godwin tapped on the door of Sixteen 
and walked into the room as was his custom. As 
he went toward the bed, a small figure in uniform 
sprang up from a chair beside the bed with a 
little exclamation. 

“You are the special?” Godwin said, looking 
around at her. “Will you turn on the light, please, 
while I look at Mrs. Grey. It is as dark as a 
dungeon here.” He straightened himself after a 
moment. “Just keep up the strychnine, as you 
have been doing — there is nothing that I can do 
for her. I suppose she does not take any nourish- 
ment?” 

“No, Doctor Godwin.” 

Doctor Godwin swung suddenly upon the 
nurse, who shrank away from him to the farther- 
most corner of the room. 

“Jeane !” 

The girl stood still, the back of her hand 
pressed to her mouth, her startled blue eyes look- 
ing out at him filled with terror. 

“My God, Jeane, is it you? Here? After all 
these weeks.” 

Still she stood staring at him out of her 
frightened eyes, without answering. 

“Jeane,” he said, brokenly, “don’t look like 
that, my girl. You are not afraid of me?” Sud- 
denly he swept out his arms. “Come to me, 
Jeane. I have been hard and cruel and stubborn, 


262 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


but these months without you have given me the 
taste of Hell that I deserved. Come !” 

Like a frightened and tired child, she came 
slowly toward him, until he had gathered her into 
his waiting arms and held her close. “Jean, all 
these months, where have you been?” 

“Here,” she whispered. “I had nowhere to 
go. I was afraid to face the world, so Joan took 
me in. I had always been good with sick people, 
and she let me hide myself from all prying eyes 
here as a special. Mrs. Grey did not need real 
nursing, only company and patience. No one 
came to the room often, only Joan, so no one rec- 
ognized me.” 

“But all these times I have been coming in 
and out in the last weeks, how did you manage 
to keep out of my sight?” 

“Joan was always near to watch. I would 
always go somewhere out of sight when I heard 
you in the corridor. Where was she tonight, that 
you got in without her knowing?” 

Remembering Joan’s parting words at the 
top of the stairs, Godwin smiled a little grimly. 
“I guess she thought it was about time I found 
my wife,” he said, slowly. “Oh, Jeane, all these 
weeks I have wanted you.” 

“Joan said when you had shown a change 
of heart, that she would let you come. Have you 
shown her your heart lately?” 

“Joan is a strange little girl. She meant me 
to be punished for my sins and hardness,” he said, 
very gently, more gently than his wife had ever 
heard him speak before. “I have had a change 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


263 


of heart, Jeane. If you can find it in your heart 
to forgive, you will never find me wanting again. 

I will treat you, my dear one, as a wife should be 
treated. You will never find yourself lonely for 
love again.” He drew her closely within the shel- 
ter of his arms, until she felt the beating of his 
heart beneath the spot where her fair head rested. 
“Perhaps I needed this lesson, Jeane, to teach me 
how well I loved you, for without you life has 
been near to Hell. Henceforth you will find me^ 
a changed man. Tell me, have you ceased to love 
me because of my hardness ?” 

Against his great breast she spoke softly. 
“I never ceased to love you, George. Always you 
were the one man. I have been weak and fool- 
ish, but never what you thought, dear.” 

“Hush,” he said, huskily. “Forgive me for 
my miserable suspicions, but forgive me most for 
letting anything come between us. Love over- 
looks all things — that is one of the things that 
I have learned in these miserable months. Love 
does not look for flaws in its object, it has no 
cruel suspicions, no bitter accusations, it just 
goes on caring to the end.” 

“Perhaps I have learned something, too, in 
these last months, George, dear. I have learned 
the value of a good man’s love, for when I thought 
I had lost it I began to see the beauty of it. I 
have learned other things, too, of life in general, 
and of your work, hereafter I will understand it 
and be interested in it. I have made up my mind 
to be a different wife to you if ever you forgave 
me and took me back.” 


264 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


There was a light tap on the door, and God- 
win turned to open it. A nurse stood in the door- 
way. “Miss Murray sent me to special for the 
night, Doctor Godwin. Miss Murray said you 
were to go to her office and rest, nurse.” 

“Thank you,” Jeane Godwin said, smiling, 
and they went out together. 

A few moments later Doctor Godwin took 
Joan’s little hand in his. “Joan, you are a won- 
derful little girl. You have taught an old codger 
how to behave, even if you did provoke me to 
such wrath at times that I was on the point of 
taking my name off the staff lists.” 

“Was it as bad as that, doctor? But don’t 
you know it is against the rules for a doctor to 
make love to one of my nurses. I am afraid I 
will have to discharge the nurse.” 

“I am rather afraid you will, as I do not 
intend to do without my wife any longer,” the doc- 
tor said, smiling down on the two women. “I am 
going to take her home at once, so there will be 
no danger of you spiriting her away again.” 

Looking into Doctor Godwin’s changed face, 
Joan smiled happily. “And I think you will keep 
her there safely henceforth. Doctor,” she said, 
softly. 

She watched them go with a little sigh. Two 
more lives had come together after the storm. A 
little ache of loneliness came into her throat for 
a moment, but she put it aside bravely, and went 
back to her tasks with a face unmarred by any 
emotion. Only once did she press the ring on her 
finger to her lips with a little gesture of pain. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. 


The End of the Rainbow. 

Spring came again, its days pregnant with 
the perfume of many flowers, and the sweet songs 
of many birds. With it came sad memories and 
sweet ones, too, for to Joan a new scene of things 
was opening up. 

Sitting in the soft spring sunlight she thought 
of Lessing Jones, and his love — ^how it had un- 
selfishly sheltered her through all her days of 
sorrow and stress. It came to her slowly, as 
though looking dimly through glasses into the 
future, that life after all was but what one made 
it. No matter what was past, love in the present 
was something not to be passed by lightly, a great 
and true love like that which Lessing Jones had 
emptied out of the fountains of his great heart 
upon her. It was certainly too precious and won- 
derful a gift of the gods to deny, because her heart 
had been given freely to another who had proved 
unworthy. So when Jones came to her again, 
humbly, tenderly, with his great offering, she was 
very gentle with him. 

“Joan,” he said, “only give to me the right to 
watch over and care for you. I will try to shield 


265 


266 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


you always, and I will help you with the work 
you are trying so hard to do alone. Take me for 
that alone, if for no other reason. You can never 
love me as I wish, I know, but at least you do not 
hate me.” 

She sat very still looking at him, much as 
she had sat that day long ago when he had of- 
fered her his love for the first time. 

“Your love has been a very wonderful thing 
to me. Less. Perhaps I have never realized it so 
much as I do now. To tell you the truth, I do 
not know what I should do if you took it from 
me now. I have always thought that a woman 
has no right to keep a man’s love if she has noth- 
ing to give in return, but. Less, I want your love 
— I need it. I love you — perhaps not just as you 
would wish to be loved — ^but there is no one on 
earth half so dear to me. I think, sometimes, 
that in life it is nearly always the same, a woman 
gives her first and best love to one who proves 
unworthy. Perhaps it makes her see the beauty 
of a worthy love. Perhaps her second love is the 
wisest and safest. It seems hard that life should 
be so, and things are as they are, but after all it 
must be our part to make the best of it, and take 
what the gods offer us.” She smiled on him, and 
in that smile the sorrow of death, and the sweet 
joy of living, were strangely mingled. 

“Joan, even what is left of your love is a 
thousand times more to me than all that another 
woman could give. I am only a commonplace 
man, there is nothing in me to inspire the love 
that some men inspire by their wonderful person- 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


267 


ality. But give to me your trust and regard, and 
I will try never to fail you in any way, and be in a 
measure worthy of you.” 

“Dear Less,” she said, tenderly, “so modest 
and kind ! So good and true ! There is no woman 
in all the world worthy of your dear, faithful 
love. Why should you choose me, whose faults 
and sins and weaknesses you have seen all your 
life ? There are so many other better women that 
you might have. Less?” 

“There are no others, Joan. To me there is 
only one woman, and that is you. You will always 
be the most wonderful thing in the world to me, 
and I shall never stop marveling at the goodness 
of God in giving you to me.” He came over to 
her, and took her gently in his arms. Arms that 
would never fail her so long as there was breath 
in his body. 

Slowly she felt the care of the years roll from 
off her shoulders. The prison bars that had held 
her a captive so long crumbled away before the 
love that had come into her life, leaving her a 
strange freedom of soul that had never been hers 
before. A strange and wonderful peace pervaded 
her tired heart, filling it with a glow of great and 
eternal radiance. Life opened up before her, filled 
with new and untried paths that she would go up 
and over, with always a guiding and helping hand 
to lead. Contentment, which is the only founda- 
tion for happiness, entered her soul. 

She took up the work of the training school 
with a new interest, no longer was it the heavy 
burden to which a cruel fate had tied her, but 


268 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


something that had been given her as a great 
work to make better. She held no longer aloof 
from the girls, but became their friend, interested 
in all the little things that concerned them. She 
planned for more pleasure, and less work, for 
them, and the rules of iron were replaced with 
rules of love. 

In the early spring old Doctor Thompson died 
suddenly, and she was at liberty to take back the 
girls who had through him been discharged from 
the school. They came back to her wiser and bet- 
ter girls, confident in her friendship and care for 
their welfare, and in all the days they stayed in 
the school she never found herself sorry that she 
had taken them back. 

Other things she tried, too. If she by chance 
discovered that a girl had been turned out into 
the world from some other training school for 
a minor reason, she was willing to take that girl 
in and give her another chance. Although there 
were often failures among them, she found enough 
success to make her feel that she was doing right. 

And in all these years Jones was her aid and 
helping hand. They both hope in the coming years 
to build up on a strong foundation the much shat- 
tered ideal of the training school, and make it 
what it was supposed to have been. Knowledge 
taught rightly. Life’s lessons shown in their 
beauty as well as in their misery — these things 
and many more may the girls henceforth find, 
within the white walls of the Hospital, that little 
world of sickness and pain and death, and life’s 
tragedies, and also that little world of beautiful 


THE LITTLE WORLD 


269 


sacrifice, courage and love, where the motto of the 
school shall be written in letters of flame on each 
nurse’s heart, I SERVE IN TRUST AND IN 
FAITH. I BEAR THE BURDEN OF OTHER 
LIVES. 


































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